Cloud Cult Albums (6)
'Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)'
Release Date 1/1/2008
Tracks 13
Label Rebel Group
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What The Critics Say
It's hard not to root for Cloud Cult. A Minneapolis-based collective whose social conscience is as important as their music, the bandmembers have made a strong name for themselves in green circles for putting their money where their mouth is on the topic: not only do they tour in a biodiesel van and use recycled and sustainable materials in their CD packaging, the group's profits are donated to charity. This includes the proceeds from the work of the band's two non-musicians, painters Connie Minowa and Scott West: during each Cloud Cult performance, they paint original works on-stage as the band plays, which are then auctioned off from the stage at the end of the show. Furthermore, it seems nearly impossible not to be moved by the fact that since the 2002 death of Kaidin Minowa, Connie and singer/songwriter Craig Minowa's young son, the majority of the band's songs have dealt, sometimes explicitly but more often obliquely, with that loss. But while doing press for the band's fifth album in five years, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), Craig Minowa announced that this was quite possibly the last Cloud Cult record, or at least the last before a long break. Releasing an album a year -- especially while undergoing the processes of grief -- is exhausting for even the most prolific bands, and unfortunately, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) shows the strain. Following the band's career high point, 2005's Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, and 2007's more restrained The Meaning of 8, this has the undeniable feel of a songwriter and a band who have started running out of ideas. To cite the group's most obvious musical touchstone, the Flaming Lips, this is their Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the album where they recycle the sounds and themes of the albums just previous with considerably less of the imagination and innovation they had previously shown. Even the most devoted Cloud Cult fans will note that while there are undeniable charms to songs like "No One Said It Would Be Easy" (which opens the album with a minute-long fugue for acoustic and electric keyboards that features some outstanding, Pink Floyd-like stereo panning that must be heard on good headphones to truly appreciate) and the Arcade Fire-style urgency of "May Your Hearts Stay Strong," the high points are fewer and farther between this time out than they were before. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On The Meaning of 8, gears are switched from the distorted hip-hop pop of the last Enon-flavored, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus to a less scatterbrained, more glossy indie-rock album. While it may be a tad disappointing to have Craig Minowa downshift from his expertise of mishmashing styles, it's remarkable to hear how capable he is at creating songs in this specific genre. In fact, the start of the album feels driven by a musical chameleon totally intent on replicating the tunes of his peers (most blatantly Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, the Flaming Lips, and the Polyphonic Spree.) Despite a more formulaic style and a reduced amount of experimental whimsy than before, the majority of these songs succeed. Where songs bubbled and blipped before, now they puff, bulge, and explode. The pieces are lush and well crafted, and often, as a songsmith, Minowa achieves a more poignant result than his immediate influences. The lovely and ripe-for-spring-fever single, "Chemicals Collide," features a Montreal indie-rock chamber pop formula that focuses on the build -- a guitar part slowly propels from finger-picking into a militant strumming over orchestral swells until the bottom drops out and then returns with a grandiose tom-fueled chorus. This new structure works especially well on the three songs that are the most somber and epic: "Hope," "Thanks" and "Dance of the Dead." They build skyward from lullabies to fourth-quarter supreme climaxes and contain the album's most heartbreaking and finest moments; especially upon realization that the conceptual overtones, saturated with philosophy and mortality, are inspired by Minowa's loss of his son. At the album's weakest moments, bits feel half-finished and almost like afterthoughts with a scattering of minimal instrumental jams and the whinier "2X2x2" and "A Good God" obstructing the view of an otherwise inspired and unusually focused vision. In most cases, the melodies are powerful, painful, and embellished with a potpourri of headphone candy -- xylophone, glockenspiel, piano, music box, vibes, and cello, combined with a variety of distorted synths, guitars, basses, and Bonham-esque drums. Ultimately, the shining moments outweigh the weaker ones (despite the exceptionally long running time), and, when Minowa hits his mark somewhere between the direct homage and the overly abstract, the results are sublime and engaging. ~Jason Lymangrover, All Music Guide
'Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus'
Release Date 3/8/2005
Tracks 25
Label Baria
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What The Critics Say
Minnesota's Cloud Cult may use Odelay as a touchstone on Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus but the outfit's experimental beats and hip-hop junk are far more out there than that influence could ever be. Lyrically and vocally removed from the Beck Hansen school of thought, the group evokes strains of the Polyphonic Spree and the Flaming Lips, while brainchild Craig Minowa comes down heavy in terms of topics. The engaging, experimental "Living on the Outside of Your Skin" makes effective use of toy pianos and handclaps to keep listeners on their toes, and Cloud Cult's environmentally astute stance is evident in tracks like "Moving to Canada" -- which pays homage to minimalist groups like the Black Keys with inexplicable skill. From the acoustic-techno shuffle of "Start New" to the pulsating, warped pop of "Happy Hippo," this cult can't help but leave a strong impression. When the latter nicks a hook from Neil Young's "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," it puts Minowa's wide musical scope, which varies from folk to funk to punk to electronica (sometimes in the same song), on display for all comers. ~ John D. Luerssen, All Music Guide
'They Live on the Sun'
Release Date 7/15/2003
Tracks 21
Label Orchard
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Minnesota's Cloud Cult were at their most prolific in 2003 and 2004 -- between two albums released just six months apart they offered the world 35 tracks in total, demonstrating their adept and unique indie rock formula. While neither album had the cohesiveness of the follow-up, 2005's Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, they progressively refined the Cloud Cult ethos, a mixture of bleary-eyed and defiant existentialism, commune-hippie ethics, and punky D.I.Y. aesthetics. In all its prolificacy, there are a modicum of throwaway tracks on They Live on the Sun ("Da Dum," "Toys in the Attic," "It's Gay," "Shortenin' Bread," "Three Times a Lady"), but one suspects they are there to balance the palpable heaviness of bulk of the album. For anyone familiar with bandleader Craig Minowa's back story -- primarily relating to the untimely death of his toddler son, to whom this album is dedicated -- songs like "Took You for Granted," "I'm Not Gone," and the closing piano solo, "Sleeping Days, Pt. 2," are gut-wrenching, and when the recorded snippets of his late son's voice are juxtaposed with Minowa's sobs of "I miss you," it would be hard to imagine anyone listening to this with a dry eye. Most tracks achieve epic catharsis with an exhilarating blend of scrappy lo-fi guitar, amateur electronics, mournful cello, and group-shouted vocals, and songs like "On the Sun," "Moon's Thought," and "It" burn with hope and empathy while some take a darker turn, like "Estupido," with its scathing indictment of a friend or former lover's tawdry affairs: "He's a gigolo with his serpent down your throat." But with few exceptions, this collection is focused on life, death, and loss, and it boggles the imagination how an artist could bounce back from devastating tragedy with a body of work that is ultimately so uplifting. Rather than exploit the pathos, Minowa prefers to live on with the oblique faith that we will all meet again one day on the Sun. ~ Brian Way, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In 2004, Cloud Cult continued their prolific output by releasing Aurora Borealis, their most consistent and focused record to date, and set the blueprint for their magnum opus follow-up, 2005's Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus. The overall sound is more refined, featuring less scattershot programmed beats (thanks to the contributions of a live rhythm section and cellist), more mature arrangements, and a tighter set of songs without the abundance of throwaways appearing on their previous album (unless you count an apparently sincere homage to "The Princess Bride"). The lyrical content is more universal here, too, since bandleader Craig Minowa tones down his (understandable) obsession with the death and loss of his two-year-old son, the only exception being the excruciatingly poignant "live radio performance" of "Beautiful Boy," which the listener who would prefer not to break down weeping openly would be advised to avoid (this song and the tail end of "Grappling Hook/Northern Lights" have samples of his deceased son's voice that are heartbreaking when one knows this back story, so weepers beware). For the most part this time out, Minowa offers somewhat more oblique existential musings with which many a young adult would identify and thus is arguably more successful if less direct and literal, depending on one's preference. The exhilarating immediacy of tracks like "Breakfast with My Shadow," "Alone at a Party in a Ghost Town," "As Long as You're Happy," and "All Together Alone" define the Cloud Cult ethic: an irreligious faith in the goodness and purpose of life and mankind. And with the closer, "State of the Union," featuring cleverly manipulated samples of a speech by George W. Bush, Cloud Cult begin exploring the overt political themes that would preoccupy their later work, a theme that supplies this communal collective with the righteous power they conjure for the sake of humanity. ~ Brian Way, All Music Guide
