A Deeper Dive into Cloud Cult

About 6 months ago I was listening to a mix cd my friend had made. I had no artist or track information at the time, and remember being stuck on the 8th song, a catchy, upbeat and down right rocking track. Who are these guys, I wondered, singing along to this ‘Cannonballs Collide’ song? A couple of days later, band and track list in hand, and humbling correction that it is actually ‘Chemicals’ Collide, (duh), I am officially introduced to Cloud Cult. I loaded their 2007 release The Meaning of 8 onto my ipod and became instantly dazzled and infatuated by this band. I hadn’t heard anything like them before, lyrically or sonically, and I was hungry to get my hands on more.

Turns out I am a late-bloomer to these guys. They’ve been around for roughly 10 years, and have 7 albums out at this point, the most recent, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying through Tornadoes) of which is being released tomorrow. I have not yet had the chance to meander my way through their entire collection, but from the 5 albums I have (They Live on the Sun, 2003; Aurora Borealis, 2004; Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, 2005; the Meaning of 8, 2007, and the most recent, Feel Good Ghosts), there’s clearly something that sets this band apart from the norm, and which is so curiously engaging, powerful and addictive. I am just as excited for their 2008 release as I am to go back in time and uncover each of their previous albums in addition to those I already have. Here’s my attempt to analyze and summarize Cloud Cult, as well as provide a sample ‘feel’ for this band by means of reviewing two of their albums, The Meaning of 8, and They Live on the Sun.

There are many artists and bands that rub up against our surface with which we cling only briefly in this day and age, the majority of which end up being shelved soon after the next wave of audio drug rolls in. We may not necessarily forget about these bands, these artists, they just drop off our ever evolving playlists, and we feel no real need to continue holding on to them on any emotional level. They fulfill a certain fix, they fill a certain soundtrack we associate to a certain period of time, and soon thereafter become neatly filed in our human hard-drives as the next setlist pushes forward. Even after filtering through all the mediocre sound out there, there’s an overabundance of solid music and art available today, a myriad of great bands reaching and rushing out to us, almost overwhelmingly so. The turnover of quality music is keeping pace with our fast-paced culture, and as a result it feels as though there are fewer and fewer artists that truly stun and shake us awake, that truly penetrate us on a deeper level, and with which we will never let go. Cloud Cult has been one of these bands for me. They are a rare and far-reaching project, an entity all their own in my mind; an island, a rock, creating and living something so refreshing and honest, so unique and colorful, they are non-comparable to any band out there. From their ensemble of guitar, cello, violin, keys, drum, bass, electronics as well as two accompanying artists that paint during Cloud Cult performances, their music is often progressive and intentionally rough, while other times beautifully gentle, charming and fluid.

Cloud Cult is best defined by their heavy, experimental, electric, and colorful sound coupled with mastermind and Cloud Cult cultivator Craig Minowa’s raw and often haunting lyrics. The group is plenty able to play light and fun, random and silly, but the main draw to Cloud Cult is their capacity to strike a deeper chord within, to reach past the surface, forcing the listener into an almost otherworldly experience. And each of their albums is exactly that – an otherworldly journey, a magic carpet ride into the depths of our own darkness, a journey into our own hearts, our own souls, via Minowa’s. His writing projects a telescopic view into his ship-wrecked soul. He doesn’t present you his skin, he pulls you right into his flesh, into the very pulsing of his veins. He is compassionate and intensely honest in his songwriting; he shares the grief he has endured, he offers his metaphorical, existential and philosophical interpretations and questions of life and the essence of existence. Most of all he pulls you into the beautifully fucked-up and fascinating clockwork of his thoughts, largely shaped by the intensity of pain and grief endured, and by the realism of an extremely unique, spiritual, and artistic mind. His songs are paintings expressed in the form of word. The way in which he forms sentences are often a play on the English language, and at times his infectious imagination is amusingly cartoon-like (think of Alice and Wonderland). His songs impose a sense of ongoing healing and recovery, of personal growth and ongoing soul-searching in the quest of life.

And there’s plenty reason for Minowa’s underlying dark and raw character which unfold in the majority of his songs. His – and wife Connie Minowa’s (who also tours with Cloud Cult as one of two visual artists who paint during Cloud Cult performances) – infant son, Kaidin, died an accidental and unexpected death in 2002. This tragedy has fueled nearly all of Minowa’s writing since, if not all.

On to the albums….

The Meaning of 8 (2007)

The Meaning of 8 starts off with the beautifully relaxed opener Chain Reaction. Flowing in nature, the poetic lines within are both simple and thoughtful ‘What you feel makes part of what they’ll feel, it’s a chain reaction… Put out fear, and they’ll feel fear…Put out love and they’ll feel love, it’s a chain reaction….’. The album then veers towards upbeat before delving into Kaidin territory, but there’s an underlying intensity throughout the entire length of the disc which is felt in the fluctuating and recurring screeching in Minowa’s vocals. The concept and underlying theme of the album is clever and fitting – each song revolves around the number and meaning of 8 – the record may quite likely have been written in anticipation of Kaidin’s 8th birth year.

In Your 8th Birthday, Minowa’s repetitious wailing of Kaidin’s name is penetrating, gut-wrenching, and downright powerful. ‘You make traffic jams feel like parades….Who could change your silly life into a screaming supernova….Who could change my sleepy brain into the eye of a hurricane…Kaidinnnnn’. This song puts me at a loss for words. Or an overwhelming pour-over of thought; it blows my mind each time I hear it. And all of the tracks on this album have a way of doing this – while they each feel like an outer-body experience in themselves, they all come together into one mind-blowing journey into a far-away space deep within ourselves.

The Shape of Eight’s wordless instrumental thrashing of electric guitar and beat is intense and out-right rocking. And in Thanks, there’s a sense of healing and coming-to, ‘I give thanks to my present day, it just got here, so please don’t go away. I finally see it’s what I choose to make, and I choose to make it into gold..’. It is so, wonderful, beautiful – just as he states himself.

Cloud Cult is art in every sense of the word. From the clash of sound, fluidity of music, the accompanying artists that paint while Cloud Cult perform, the album artwork which is creative and colorfully reflective of their music, to the conscientious means by which Cloud Cult release their albums (hippie-environmentalist Minowa founded eco-friendly record label Earthology, which uses geo-thermal energy when recording and packages cd deliverables by means of recycleable materials), this band in fact represents a higher meaning of music and art.

Your 8th Birthday:

They Live On The Sun (2003)

Beginning with On The Sun, the intro track here reminds me of The Meaning of 8’s Chain Reaction in terms of the minimalistic nature of the lyrics dispersed throughout the predominantly instrumental track, and in the way in which it sounds like a peaceful, coming-to-terms expression of healing and recovery. It is also similar to Chain Reaction in that it sets the stage for the rest of the album, which in this case is comprised mostly of short, curt bursts of intensity (14 of the 21 tracks are under or between two to three minutes in length). The album is a collection of several raw, cut-up, short excerpts of sound and song, and in summation is an acid-trip of a record. It is beautifully solid and thorough throughout however, and a trip I highly recommend experiencing.

In the 1m20s rough cut Turtle Shell, Minowa repeats ‘This is my turtle shell, it’s made of paper mache, I wear it to protect, you cannot hurt me that way’ before veering into Fairy Tale, which is essentially that, a fantasy-based storyline with children’s references to Little Miss Muppet and Little Jack Horner. In Waitress, “We’ll move to Canada. Have a family, a cow, and a chicken. I’ll write you poetry’, random and silly cross over with something deeper stirring within Minowa. But while there’s something deep and fascinating going on in this album, it’s also easy to take it as lightly as you’d like, and it’s hard not to take some of the songs as comical relief (more than a few storylines are creative extensions of the imagination). Songs like Your Love WIll Live Forever, however, are completely serious and dark in nature. ‘…it’s the work of the ugly to highlight the beautiful, and in so doing, the ugly is beautiful too…..when you get used to such a limited reality, you’ve got no choice but to unlearn and start again..’ And in Sleeping Days, Pt 2, a beautiful piano-based rendition that pays more homage Kaidin: ‘I hope you awoke to fireworks in the arms of a grass-stained wizard…You’re a plastic boy on a plastic bed, why didn’t they take me instead?…I’ll protect your memories with the dragons in my chest’. The way in which Minowa sings ‘good night, baby, daddy’s going crazy’ on this track reminds me of Concrete Blonde’s mournful Tomorrow, Wendy.

Radio Fodder shows a sweet and fun-loving side of Minowa. Though most songs avoid direct mention of Kaidin on this album, the child’s voice is hauntingly looped in a few tracks (as it is throughout later album Aurora Borealis). And in Took You For Granted, we hear Minowa cursing and weeping regret and sorrow within a relatively upbeat track. This album is reflective of a man who seems to be on the verge of going over the edge, or perhaps reflective of a battle to stay on board. Regardless, it is ingeniously produced and reveals many angles of a brilliant and complex soul.

Cloud Cult will be performing in Seattle at Neumo’s on Friday, May 9th. Their live shows are as much about the music as they are about the artistic experience, and noteworthy are the accompanying artists’ paintings, which are available for bid at the end of their shows. Their latest album, Feel Good Ghosts, is in stores tomorrow and can be ordered on their website as well (instantly downloadable, with the option of having an accompanying eco-friendly hard-copy shipped) at: http://www.cloudcult.com/store/. The album, not surprisingly, sounds nothing less than stellar upon first listen. I am instantly drawn to tracks Everybody Here Is A Cloud and The Ghost Inside Our House (and am awestruck at how similar Minowa’s voice sounds to Elliot Smith’s within both). As the album plays in the background, I feel my rocketship launching…

Chain Reaction video on youtube: