About
Denver Post: Top 12 Albums of the Decade- “It’s impossible to not be moved…"
Pitchfork: “Insane genius...Records this casually monumental are rare indeed.”
New York Times: “A sprawling kaleidoscopic invocation of the life force with songs that veer from jubilation to simmering prayerful meditation.”
Los Angeles Times: “Deserving of loud, boisterous cheers.”
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BIO
Cloud Cult’s philosophical lyrics and indie-chamber-
Cloud Cult began as Craig Minowa's solo studio project after the unexpected loss of his son and has grown with an evolving lineup of string, brass, and rock musicians. Known for incorporating live painting into their concerts, Cloud Cult were dubbed by Wall Street Journal as pioneers of multimedia artistry.
Breaking with the recent history of orchestral folk singles that have landed Cloud Cult’s music at the top of college radio charts (including three songs landing in The Current's Hall of Fame), Cloud Cult is set to release a high energy ambient indie rock album, in August of 2024 with singles debuting in May. The album, entitled Alchemy Creek, was written and recorded in a tiny home in the middle of deep Wisconsin woods by Minowa in isolation over the course of two years.
Cloud Cult’s extensive catalogue also includes 10 full-length studio albums, , Unplug (a live album and film), No One Said It Would Be Easy (a feature length documentary film), Stories From the Road (a series of short films), and their album turned feature film, The Seeker – (starring Josh Radnor & Alex McKenna – which landed on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List). Cloud Cult's most recent album, Metamorphosis (2022), was written and composed for performance with the Minnesota Orchestra and included three sold out shows at Minnesota Orchestra Hall, in the fastest ticket sale in the venue's history.
In addition, the band’s green efforts are unmatched. Minowa created the band's own Earthology Records to help green the music industry and co-developed the first 100% postconsumer recycled CD packaging in the U.S. market. The band began zero net greenhouse gas practices for tours long before it was trendy and their merchandise is 100% postconsumer recycled or made of certified organic materials. On top of that, Cloud Cult has planted several thousand trees to absorb the band's CO2 output, their studio is powered by solar power and built partially from reclaimed wood and recycled plastic and they donate heavily to projects that build wind turbines as revenue generators on Native American Reservations.
From a cabin studio in the middle of the woods, Minowa has been releasing a steady stream of weekly Cloud Cult “self-help” songs and videos exclusive to its Patreon base over the last 5 years, ranking the band as one of the top content creators on the platform.
The common thread through what Cloud Cult does as a creative collective is their uplifting message and continual celebration of life, love, and catharsis through music as medicine.
ALCHEMY CREEK STUDIO
THE CLOUD CULT BAND
Shannon Frid-Rubin: Violin
Jeremy Harvey: Drums
Craig Minowa: Singer/songwriter, guitar
Shawn Neary: Bass, Banjo, Trombone
Sarah Perbix: Keyboard, French horn, Trumpet
Scott West: Live Painter
Daniel Zamzow: Cello, Mandola
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Emmy Winning Video Biography of Cloud Cult by The Lowertown Line:
Long Bio:
Cloud Cult developed in 1995 as a solo studio project of Craig Minowa. His first full length album, The Shade Project caught the interest of a few small independent labels who urged Minowa to consider performing the songs live. Craig worked the next four years on a new studio project which would be the first official Cloud Cult album, Who Killed Puck?.
In 1999, lead singer Craig and his wife at the time, Connie Minowa, formed Earthology, a 501c3 not-for-profit organization focused on providing individuals, schools, and business tools for environmental sustainability. Craig worked on developing the Earthology Records branch, which was focused on helping to green the music industry. Earthology Records, based at the time in Duluth, MN, would become the homegrown powerhouse where all of the band's booking, publicity, CD replication, t-shirt production, and recording would take place. Through Earthology, Minowa co-developed the first 100% postconsumer recycled CD packaging in the U.S. market.
Earthology Records was later moved to an organic farm south of Duluth, powered by solar and geothermal energy and built partially from reclaimed wood and recycled plastic. The band began zero net greenhouse gas practices for tours long before it was trendy to be green. The band's merchandise is 100% postconsumer recycled or made of certified organic materials. Cloud Cult has planted several thousand trees to absorb the band's CO2 output. They also donate heavily to projects that build wind turbines as revenue generators on Native American Reservations.
In the year 2002, shortly after the unexpected death of his two year old son Kaidin, Minowa wrote over a hundred songs to deal with the loss.They Live on the Sun was finished in 2003 and went to #1 on college radio station charts across the country. Since that album, Cloud Cult's music has been strongly inspired by the "big picture" issues of life: "who are we, why are we here, where did we come from, where do we go". Minowa seems in constant pursuit of the light at the end of the tunnel. At this time, Minowa decided to bring the project to the stage and added band members Sarah Young on cello and Dan Greenwood on drums.
In 2004, the band released Aurora Borealis, which garnered enough critical acclaim to get the band nominated by the Minnesota Music Awards as “Artist of the Year” along with Prince and Paul Westerberg of The Replacements. With a van covered in solar panels, the band added Mara Stemm to the lineup on bass and began touring nationally. Cloud Cult's stage show began to catch the attention of national press, as they included two live painters on stage, Connie Minowa and Scott West, as well as back screen video and performance artists.
In 2006, Cloud Cult released Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, which Pitchfork Media called “insane genius” and rated the album with an 8.3.
The Denver Post ranked the 2007 release The Meaning of 8 as one of the top 12 albums of the past decade, along with bands like Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips and Radiohead. Cloud Cult received several offers from major record labels, but all were rejected in favor of self-publishing and maintaining total control over the ethical aspects of the Cloud Cult business practices. Shannon Frid joined the lineup on violin, Mathew Freed replaced Mara Stemm on bass, and Jeff D. Johnson joined the group as sound engineer.
Cloud Cult released the album entitled Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) on April 8, 2008. As with the past Cloud Cult albums, the album was recorded and produced at Minowa’s small organic farm in Northern Minnesota. "The place is so far out in the boonies, you can barely find it, because it’s not on the maps," said Dan Montalto, an MTV Producer who brought a camera crew to the farm to film an MTV feature on the band.
In October 2008, Cloud Cult was featured in an animated Esurance commercial that aired during the Super Bowl. The band is shown playing their song "Lucky Today" while floating on clouds and promoting ecological driving practices. In exchange for the work, Esurance helped fund some of the band's costs for greening the Feel Good Ghosts Tour. During 2008 and 2009, the band's growth continued, with a heavy tour schedule and appearances on MTV, Carson Daly, Rolling Stone, Spin and a plethora of other media outlets. Arlen Peiffer replaced Dan Greenwood on drums and Shawn Neary replaced Matt Freed on bass.
In the Spring of 2009, Cloud Cult released No One Said It Would Be Easy a full length documentary about the band, created by John Burgess and Scott West as well as "Lost Songs from the Lost Years" a collection of previously unreleased songs spanning the band's 15 year history.
The band released a new full length album on March 5, 2013, entitled Love which charted higher on the Billboard Charts for Cloud Cult than any of their previous albums and brought the band on a string of sold out US tour dates.
Cloud Cult released a new full length live acoustic album and concert film, Unplug, on April 15, 2014. It was produced and mixed by Jeff D. Johnson and mastered by Jeff Lipton (Bon Iver, Arcade Fire). While the songs were all pulled from the band’s existing discography, the versions on Unplug are quite different than the album versions as Minowa said the album was more of a collaborative process than any of Cloud Cult's previous discography. The songs were chosen by their lyric content as a distillation of the philosophies from all of the past albums.
Over the next couple of years, Cloud Cult made their European debut, added Jeremy Harvey on drums, won an Emmy, were featured in a new biography book called Chasing the Light by Professor Mark Allister, and they released their album and feature film The Seeker in February of 2016, starring Josh Radnor and Alex McKenna, written and composed by Minowa and directed and visually scored by Jeff D. Johnson and his film company Motion 117 Productions. The Seeker became an award winning film as it toured the film festival circuit in late 2016. To promote the digital release of The Seeker on iTunes, Google, Amazon and Vimeo, Cloud Cult announced a string of US tour dates where the band performed the full score of The Seeker as the movie plays on screen.
Breaking with the recent history of orchestral folk singles that have landed Cloud Cult’s music at the top of college radio charts (including three songs landing in The Current's Hall of Fame), Cloud Cult is set to release a high energy ambient indie rock album, in August of 2024 with singles debuting in May. The album, entitled Alchemy Creek, was written and recorded in a tiny home in the middle of deep Wisconsin woods by Minowa in isolation over the course of two years.