Cloud Cult - Pretty Voice

I’m not done talking about Cloud Cult!

A reoccurring theme throughout multiple Cloud Cult songs is innocence. I would not describe this said innocence as childish or naive in narration, nor would I describe this innocence as ignorance or immature in subject matter. Much like everything else Cloud Cult, this innocence is something of wonderment and joy, the wonder and joy of life. Perhaps it is easier to capture the beauty of the world through the eyes of youth.

Most people view age and experience as a negative in regards to happiness. Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” is a classic rock song that explicitly states that growing up and become “logical” robs us our innocence and therefore happiness, and that is just one of many musical examples we could call upon to show this message. Craig Minowa appears to offer us an alternative way of thinking to such notions. So many of his songs are about unravelling the mystery of ourselves and the world we live in and there is always an excitement coupled with blissfulness upon what we discover.

This is perhaps best seen in the song “Transistor Radio” an awe inspiring song about growing up and using the highly unique metaphor of grandfather’s voice heard through a transistor radio leading his grandson on an adventure. Learning and growing is seen as fun and exciting for the first two verses and only in the third is felt as a struggle the reward, and wisdom of it all, is just around the bend

“Transistor Radio” is an amazing song but this review is about another song.

Cloud Cult - Transistor Radio - An excellent fan made video

I can only assume that Craig and Connie, were very loving parents, and their connection to their lost son clearly weighs heavily upon their influences of their creativity. While alive, Craig’s son had wondered into his father’s studio and began to speak into the microphone while his father played, almost like he instinctively knew what the microphone was for, Craig naturally kept all these recordings. After his son’s death all these sounds they had created together in the chicken coop recording studio was all that remained of his lost son. So locked in the studio was the only place Craig could still be with his son, a very unique experience for someone to go through to say the least. Craig coped with his loss this way until he released some of the tracks he had made with his son’s voice and universities across the country started to play his music and Craig knew what was happening, he had found a way to share his son’s soul with the world. He could now be with his son everywhere, not just the studio. The song most directly inspired by Minowa’s son has to be his take on “My Little Sunshine” and as relevant as a song as this is, it is not the one I wish to focus on.

Cloud Cult - My Little Sunshine

There is a very beautiful sentiment Minowa shares with us in the DVD “No One Said It Would Be Easy,” he states that energy can never be destroyed so all the love and positive energy you send out into the universe just keeps going and going forever. In this way his son and all the love he shared with him now lives forever in the positive energy he has shared with all of us. He tries to be scientific about it, and you can challenge him however you want on the realism of this statement but I find impossible to refute the intelligence of such a life lesson.

There is a very clever story telling maneuver being performed by Craig Minowa in his song writing which he expresses so naturally I suspect he is not entirely aware of his own genius. Every story, and every song, needs a starting point, and childhood is an instantly identifiable and universal understood origin point. In a majority of Cloud Cult songs it is not overly obvious there is a childlike approach being used, but once you see in plainly once like in a song like “Transistor Radio” you begin to see it everywhere. The adjectives Minowa uses are so splendidly unique, almost like a child, with an incredible vocabulary, is trying to describe something they are seeing for the very first time. This, among other things is one of the reasons I love the song “Pretty Voice.”

First of all the lyrics are just odd enough to make you laugh a little but more importantly they make you wonder. The message seems simple enough, missing someone’s pretty voice, but that’s only the base message, there are great references to magical people and things that make the imagination just run wild.

Cloud Cult - Pretty Voice (Live at 89.3 The Current)

"A scene begins,
With our next melody,
Sung by a bashful bird,
Humming a violet sky.
There are no words,
But there is understanding.
It's been so long...
Since I've heard that pretty voice.

Raise up our lights,
And enter hero girl.
She makes me calm,
Yeah she makes me calm.
When she hears a song,
And she starts singing.
It's been so long...
Since I've heard that pretty voice.

Strike up the band,
Here comes the storyline,
Of the usual struggle,
Between fear and love.
This is the lifelong song,
We're all singing.
It's been so long...
Since I've heard that pretty voice.

Now it begins,
I miss your hollering,
But you're so sure,
Such a bashful bird.
Here's a song,
But no one's singing.
It's been so long...
Since I've heard your pretty voice."

Who the hell is hero girl? Because I would love to know, she sounds amazing! Also the usual struggle between fear and love, he’s right, we are all singing, what a perfect way to describe all relationships ever in a single sentence. “Pretty Voice” is the sort of song that I cannot imagine of a person who would not be able to feel attached to these lyrics. Minowa is right when no one’s singing along, the messages and feelings we share, seen in an incalculable numbers of songs, we are all singing.

Lastly, the true test of a band is their ability to perform live, and there is a reason why I posted the primary video link to Cloud Cult performing “Pretty Voice” live 89.3 The Current studios. This live version is somehow even better than the original, and not even by a small margin. This live performance is one of the single best things I have ever heard.

Well, I hope I made myself clear by now. Cloud Cult is indie rock’s best kept secret and every day you ignore them and ignore me telling you to stop ignoring them your life is poorer for it.

- Colin Kelly

Cloud Cult - No One Said It Would Be Easy

I discovered Cloud Cult back in 2010 but the band has been around since 1995. I reviewed Cloud Cult’s “Everybody Here is a Cloud” in 2011 and since that time I have fallen in love with the band. Meanwhile an overwhelming majority of the rest of the world, even people who listen to indie rock, still have no idea who Cloud Cult are.

Cloud Cult – Everybody here is a Cloud, review: http://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.ca/2011/09/cloud-cult-everybody-here-is-cloud.html

Craig Minowa, Cloud Cult’s front man is a really good song writer. I love songs like “You’ll be Bright,” “Journey of the Featherless,” “Unexplainable Journey,” “Running with the Wolves,” “Take Your Medicine” and “Chemicals Collide.” This is how I determine a good band from a great band, volume of quality. I just mentioned six songs by Cloud Cult, not including “Everybody Here is a Cloud” and I haven’t even gotten to the one I want to focus on, and that song is “No One Said It Would Be Easy.” Conclusion, Cloud Cult is great band.

“You came up from the ground,
From a million little pieces,
You're a pretty human being,
“Yeah, you're a pretty human being.”

The opening lyrics (seen above) are just so charming, what a wonderful and sort of geeky thing to say to another human being. One day a situation will arise where saying this to a pretty girl will feel appropriate and I will finally get to see how effective of a line it is. Then we get this;

“When it all comes crashing down,
Try to understand your meaning,
No one said it would be easy,
This living it ain't easy.”

These words really struck a chord with me. I’ve lived a tough life; I try not to complain too much because I am healthy and strong, and no permanent damage has ever been done to me, but still it has been an aggravating journey so far to say the least. Granted, no one said it would be easy, and yeah, this living it ain’t easy.

That’s how I interrupted “No One Said It Would Be Easy.” I took it to be a song embracing and accepting the hardships of life. Craig Minowa reminded me that I was not the only one out there frustrated with the ways my life had played out, and I would be lying if even in my youth I expecting things to be much different. There is a silver lining in our troubled lives, even though things are bad seemingly all the time, the truth is things are generally pretty good, and there are so many little things making it all worthwhile, and they are always there all the time. I began to suspect that “No One Said it Would Be Easy” was no less a flagship song for Cloud Cult then “Everybody Here is a Cloud,” after all who listens to Cloud Cult? I may be the only one. Their first music video was released in 2009, fourteen years after the band’s inception. I began to strongly suspect “No One Said It Would Be Easy” was as much about the band Cloud Cult as it was about the struggles of life. Like everyone Minowa surely had struggles in life, but given the obscurity combined with the longevity of Cloud Cult I believe it is safe to say that being Cloud Cult was probably never easy.

Cloud Cult’s documentary DVD is titled “No One Said It Would Be Easy.” When I learned that, I knew I had nailed it. No one would name their documentary “No One Said It Would Be Easy” if they hadn’t experienced their unfair share of challenges.

In the DVD the opening scene is a collection of fans explaining what Cloud Cult means to them. For the most part these fan’s feelings and their connection with Cloud Cult is completely different than my own. They talked at length about copping with the loss of a loved one and acceptance of who they were and other beautiful sentiments that I had not walked away with when listening to Cloud Cult. Further to the point, no one interpreted “No One Said It Would Be Easy” the way I had, and at no point during the DVD was any such message declared. I was still right though, everything fit in place.

Craig Minowa and the rest of the Cloud Cult are the real deal. They are real hippies with genuine messages of peace, love and joy told to us through the magic of music. Minowa and his wife live on a farm and Craig’s recording studio is a custom made room sound proofed with recyclable materials and the remains of an old chicken coop. Everyone in Cloud Cult has a job that does not involve music, Craig is an environmental scientist and his wife Connie is an educator as well as an artist. Craig and Connie started Earthology records together through which they developed the first one hundred percent postconsumer recycled CD packaging in the U.S. market. There are a lot of people who talk a lot about the environment and try so hard to look so good in the eyes of the compassionate, but a musician who is also an environmental scientist, who lives on an organic farm with a chicken coop recording studio and has an inefficient non-money making one hundred percent environmentally friendly recording company is the sort of man who is walking the walk. Also Minowa hardly advertising himself as anything special in the crusade for the environment, he is just a really great guy.

But no one said it would be easy.

\

Craig Minowa may be the
nicest man ever.

There was a great pain suffered by Craig and Connie, their son passed away at age two, and like any loving kind hearted people it hit them hard. Combine all that with poverty, and the continuous failed financial investment of playing shows to empty crowds and I dare say it was never easy for Craig and Cloud Cult. Here is the thing about Craig, he is nicest man ever. Now I have never met the man but he is always smiling in the documentary, even when he has no idea he is being filmed, even when he is talking about being hopelessly broke, playing to literally empty crowds and generally utterly failing at being a productive adult. More so Craig is smiling even when talking about his son. Even when Craig Minowa is clearly heartbreakingly upset, he is smiling. It is the sort of hippie sunshine hope that typically should be mocked but in Minowa’s case he is so real and so absolutely resolute in his enthusiastic conviction there is no room for mockery. Minowa is a man with a very healthy set of priorities of love and joy, which probably should be on the top of everyone’s list of things to do and be. If only I could find the inner peace to live like that.

It is the sort of joy and kindness and pure lawful goodness that I have always sought in my life. We all hurt. We all suffer. However we all know it feels so good, to just be alive. This life will never be easy, but so what? Everything you need is here, everything you fear is here, and it’s holding you up. It just keeps holding you up, and you’re a pretty human being. Yeah, you’re a pretty human being.

Someday someone other than me will one day be talking about how great Cloud Cult is. Cloud Cult is by far the best kept secret in indie rock.

- Colin Kelly

Cloud Cult - Everybody here is a Cloud

“You’ve been spending your time,
Thinking about why you think so much.
If there were ever a time,
Now would be the time
To see your time here is limited.”

I like the Cloud Cult, they are a strange bunch. They have hypnotic songs that focus on very simple patterns of sound, and usually unusual sounds at that. They are somewhat similar to bands like The Polyphonic Spree or... well I cannot think of a second band they are similar too, which kind of emphasis their uniqueness.

I discovered the Cloud Cult while doing my job as a music critic, scouring the internet for songs I had not heard before. They were one of my pleasant surprises, and despite being extraordinarily weird, I have grown very fond of them.

Oh Internet what would we do without you. Well the music in review wouldn’t exist for starters.

The first song I ever heard by the Cloud Cult was “Everybody here is a Cloud,” which I can only assume is their flagship song. Even though I have grown very fond of other tracks of theirs, I think “Everybody Here is a Cloud,” is a good song to focus on, being a flagship song it helps sum up the band in one track.

“Everybody here is a Cloud” is a quirky song by a quirky band, but there is a certain level of depth to the track that I enjoy, especially the line quoted at the beginning of the review. If you fail to understand why a lyric about thinking too much, appeals to me than you have not known me very long and clearly have not read many of these reviews. Beyond that the song does convey something of a cult like message; slivers of philosophical thoughts are mixed in with a sense of union, and of course the cult if all about clouds. It works, it is weird, but it is good.

I am left with a limited amount of things to say about Cloud Cult. They are a strange entity and perhaps listing to “Everybody here is a Cloud,” will go far further to explain them than anything I can say. I wanted to share this band with all of you, because I have idea what to expect from them in the future and I feel it is important to get word out now in the event that things get either too weird or fall apart for The Cloud Cult. Furthermore I like sharing music with people that is off track from our usual expectations and despite the variety of peoples’ tastes that read The Music in Review, none of you might expect The Cloud Cult. That is what makes them so fun.

About half way through this review I realized I have created a “cloud” theme for this month’s pair of music in reviews. While this was not intentional it is pretty cool.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- Colin Kelly