As Cloud Cult, the much beloved Minnesota band lead by Minowa, simultaneously embarks on a cross-country tour dedicated to “carbon neutrality” and self-releases its albums on Earthology Records (self-described as “the only nonprofit Record Company in existence to offer environmentally and socially friendly CD replication services at reduced rates for struggling artists”), the band makes music exactly the opposite of their eco-lifestyle—it's music meant to make a maximum impact.
Minowa is a man stricken with the music bug. For the entirety of the 2000s, he unleashed critically lauded, sonically expansive albums at a rate that would make any songwriter with a bout of writers block want to kick Minowa’s ass. (In fact, he’s released eight albums in the last eight years, with most packing over an hours worth of tunes.)
The latest is "Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes)" and it continues Minowa’s winning streak of unhinged melodic inventiveness.
The task of describing Cloud Cult’s strange brew of music is as daunting a challenge as ever. On the album’s thirteen tracks, this is largely because the group seemingly shifts identity from song-to-song. Are they the Arcade Fire invoking anthem makers of the album’s opening track (‘No One Said It Would Be Easy”)? Or is their true identity that of cracked electro-funk pranksters (“Tornado Lessons”)? Or perhaps orchestral folk-pop purveyors (“Journey of the Featherless”)?
The group hits its stride working in all three modes, and Minowa’s shaky warble—most often compared to alt-rock star Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips—remains highly engaged regardless of its sonic backdrop.
The band’s stuffed-to-the-gills musical approach (a bevy of strings, multiple vocal tracks often manipulated with wild sound effects, keyboards and beats galore) doesn’t always take flight, but when everything works, as on cathartic freak out “May Your Hearts Stay Strong,” it’s a truly heavenly sound.
There’s another important motivation behind Ghosts. In 2002, Minowa's 2-year-old son, Kaidin, died in the middle of the night, of unspecified causes. As on much of his prior work, Minowa is still clearly drawing some of his songwriting grist from the endless flood of emotions that such an event inevitably creates. Rather than being dedicated to misery, however, Minowa’s lyrics specialize in hard won optimism and focus on the continued importance of striving against giving in to hopelessness.
This optimism is best exemplified on "Feel Good Ghosts" by “The Ghost Inside Our House,” a song about the search for meaning amidst the detritus of grief that manages to grapple with big issues (faith, death, the whole shebang) without coming off as grandiose or grating (admittedly a near impossible accomplishment).
Whether Cloud Cult’s your cup of musical tea or not (and if you’re a fan of higher profile groups like The Eels and the aforementioned Arcade Fire and Flaming lips it probably is), it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer level of ambition on display in their mammoth albums and their ardent environmental activism.
And in a musical world where too many national and local acts are content to follow in well-worn traditions, Cloud Cult make a decidedly unique sound that decidedly feel good music.
Cloud Cult play the CD release show for Feel Good Ghosts on Saturday, April 26th, at First Avenue . With opening acts Mason Proper and the Forms. 5 p.m. $13 advance/$15 doors. 18+.
