Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Cloud Cult


Cloud Cult is an experimental indie rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group began in 1995 as the solo studio project of Craig Minowa. His first studio album sparked the interest of a number of small record labels that encouraged him to preform live. Over the course of the next four years Minowa worked on what would become the first Cloud Cult album. This first offering brought out offers from a number of different record labels, all of which were denied in favor of continued independent releases (a trend that continues today).

In 2002 in an effort to cope with the unexpected death of his two year old son Minowa went on a songwriting binge. During the course of the next year or so he crafted over one-hundred songs. It is a combination of these songs with others that have been written over the years that have fueled Cloud Cult. If you listen to their lyrics most of them deal with "big picture" ideas - who are we? where are we from? where do we go?...etc.

In the last eight years Cloud Cult has grown largely in popularity. Their last couple albums have received a lot of high praise from people who probably know more about awesome music than me. In 2006, they released "Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus"--great name!, which Pitchfork Media called “insane genius”. In 2007 their release "The Meaning of 8" was labeled by some as one of the top ten albums of the past decade.

Also worth noting...Cloud Cult is known to put on a great live show. One of their very unique features is that they have two painters at every show. The painters each craft a painting during the show that is auctioned off at the Shows end. I have yet to experience them live, but they will be coming to Madison @ The Majestic in early December and there is a pretty good chance I'll be checking that one out.

Just a few weeks ago Cloud Cult turned out another great disc. The album is called "Light Chasers". Here is a taste - pretty phenomenal stuff.

Cloud Cult's Website



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