Cloud Cult

“Away, away, from men and towns, to the wild wood and the downs, -- To the silent wilderness, where the soul need not repress, it’s music.” While Percey B. Shelley may have written these words years ago, Craig Minowa brings them to life each day. Minowa is the founder of the Minnesota band Cloud Cult, a band whose story is triumphant, heart wrenching and inspirational.

In 1995, using a small Minneapolis apartment’s closet as a recording studio, Minowa created the first Cloud Cult album The Shade Project. Through the course of the next decade, Sarah Young (cello, vocals), Dan Greenwood (drums), Matthew Freed (bass), and Scott West and Connie Minowa (two painters who also create original paintings live on stage) would join Minowa to become vital members of a band that is now regularly selling out clubs around the U.S.

With a shoestring budget and a do-it-yourself mentality, Cloud Cult has rejected major label offers in favor of maintaining complete control over its environmental pursuits and music, which Pitchfork rated at an 8.3 and described as “insane genius.” And to the surprise of those same major labels, the band has found itself on North America’s college radio charts perched next to big-budget acts like the White Stripes and Coldplay.

For The Shade Project, Craig played all of the instruments, some that were buckets, pans, and couch cushions in place of the instruments he could not afford. This laid the foundation for the core of Cloud Cult’s music which he states as “the struggle to understand mortality and our purpose here.” Pushing forward and diving into the sophomore record, Craig wrote Who Killed Puck in 2000 and created a visual concept album that discussed the social, political and truth-seeking struggles he was experiencing, while working numerous jobs to make ends meet.

Over the next five years, Cloud Cult solidified their talents by pushing themselves and writing innovative college-indie music that connects with listeners on an extremely personal level. Cloud Cult released three more albums between 2001 and 2005, and with each record, they took their analysis of mortality one step further, from assessing the concept of true love and love lost, to healing and exploring the fine line between life and death. Much of this lyrical messaging stemmed from the unexpected loss of Minowa’s two-year-old son in 2002.

Their most recent release, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, (nominated as “Pop Album of the Year” by the Minnesota Music Awards) brought the band new levels of success. They landed on numerous critics’ “Best of 2005” lists, exploded on the college radio charts, and while playing to packed audiences, drew listeners in by portraying the music through live painters, performance artists, and back-screen videos.

Enter 2007 and Cloud Cult is set to release The Meaning of 8, their most promising record to date (due out on Earthology Records on April 10, 2007). After turning down various record label offers in favor of sticking with their own self-made Earthology Records, their do it yourself grassroots approach to everything remains fully intact. They have developed their own production methods of making the most environmentally friendly CDs available on the planet, and they make all of their tours "green" by countering CO2 emissions from travel with acres of tree plantings, purchasing wind power credits to power the stages, and equipping the tour van with solar panels.

Building upon the revelations and discoveries they found in the past five albums, The Meaning of 8 is a forward-thinking record that sounds as if it was composed by jubilant ghosts from another side of reality. The band expresses philosophies and emotions with doses of thick strings and orchestration, an interweaving between acoustic and electronic drums, and a swing through musical genres that is as unpredictable as the band itself. Providing music lovers with a way to listen and grow, The Meaning of 8 is a soul searching journey that only Cloud Cult can take you on.

The environmentally conscious Cloud Cult began in the early '90s in Minneapolis, MN, as a solo project for Craig Minowa, who at the time was pursuing a degree in environmental science while shining shoes and driving an ice cream truck, among other jobs.

In 1995, Minowa spent the year recording The Shade Project, which included sounds produced by buckets, pans, and couch cushions. In early 2000, he followed up with Who Killed Puck? After the birth of his son, Minowa kept Cloud Cult as a studio project, with the next two years focusing on family, recording, writing grants, and working as an environmental activist. He also formed Earthology Records on his organic farm, powered by geothermal energy and built partially from reclaimed wood and recycled plastic.

With the sudden death of his son in February 2002, Minowa became reclusive while writing a large volume of songs. They Live on the Sun eventually was finished in 2003 and featured cellist Sarah Young and drummer Dan Greenwood, who became permanent members of Cloud Cult. In January 2004, Cloud Cult added Mara Stemm on bass and released Aurora Borealis just six months later. For the supporting tour, shows began to include live painters (including Minowa's wife), performance artists, back-screen video, and nonprofit environmental tabling organizations. Yet another Cloud Cult album came in the summer of 2004, titled Lost Songs from the Lost Years, a ten-year anthology of previously unreleased work from Minowa. Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus was released June 2005 with the full live band now consisting of Minowa (vocals, guitar, keyboard), Greenwood (drums), Young (cello, keyboard), and Matthew Freed (bass, keyboard, percussion). ~ Kenyon Hopkin, All Music Guide