Writing about Cloud Cult is hard. Listening to Cloud Cult is easy – with mellow percussion and violin melodies, the music feels like something your ears don’t just want but desperately need to hear. But thinking too long or too deeply about Cloud Cult is simply hard. The group’s long history, when looked at too carefully, becomes a beautifully articulated before-and-after of a tragedy.
In 1995, Craig Minowa got a rag-tag group of local artists together to help him record his solo album, and the result was Cloud Cult. Many record companies came knocking, but the group kept their local soul and environmental principles and decided to self-published their first album. In 1997 Minowa established Earthology Records right on his organic farm outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has said he created the record company out of necessity. No one was making environmentally friendly CDs at the time, so Minowa started making CDs out a recycled material, recycled jewel cases, using soy ink, and most importantly geothermal energy. Earthology’s buildings were made out of reclaimed wood and other recycled materials, and the entire record label is a non-profit that makes considerable donations to charity.
While running his farm and record label, Minowa still found time to record albums and tour with Cloud Cult (on a biodiesel powered bus, of course). One of the unique features of a Cloud Cult show is that it usually feature’s Minowa’s wife, local artist Connie Minowa, along with Scott West doing live paintings onstage during the show, as well as performing with the band. At the end of the show, both paintings are auctioned off to the highest bidder. The paintings are inspired by the music, and based heavily on the imagery in the lyrics. This custom of onstage painting is a good example of one of the most important aspects of Cloud Cult, their integration.
The art is seamlessly intertwined into the show, the label is combined with the farm, and the band’s environmental sensibilities fill the songs with lovely, nostalgic lyrics. There is no damning of current policies, criticism of the wasteful modern life, or cry for everyone to Occupy Minnesota. Instead, when Minowa wants to write about those issues by going in the other direction. The lyrics focus on happier times, green grass, shining skies, and clear water. We are not shamed for throwing away plastic water bottles when we couldn’t find the recycling, but inspired to go lay in the grass and plant a tree.
In 2002, Craig and Connie’s two year old son Kaidin died unexpectedly and unexplainably in his sleep one night. That’s the kind of tragedy that can destroy a person, and when you hear the music Minowa wrote afterwards, you get the sense it very nearly did. In the song “Your 8th Birthday” off the album The Meaning of 8, an album released eight years after Kaidin’s death, Minowa is literally screaming his son’s name in between lyrics like “Who could change your silly life into a screaming supernova /You do/Who could change my sleepy brain into the eye of a hurricane.” It’s a heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece of pure emotion, and nine times out of ten it makes me tear up.
Even after such a great loss, although it might be hard to believe, life goes on. Nine years later, the farm and label are still successful. In 2009 a documentary came out called No One Said It Would Be Easy – A Film About Cloud Cult that combines interviews, live footage, and behind the scenes footage to create a film that is half reflective, half introduction. The Minowas have had two more children, and Cloud Cult’s latest album Light Chasers moves away from the mourning of previous albums to a new, hopeful sound. Hopeful for their children, hopeful for the environment, and hopeful for the future.