Listening to: Cloud Cult

A Strange thing happened at the music store. I picked up a CD by Medeski, Martin & Wood (http://www.mmw.net/), a great acid jazz trio I have been listening to for over ten years. I went to the register and purchased my CD. Went to my car and started removing the obnoxious plastic rap that encases all CDs and noticed that my MMW album had transformed into a completely different CD. I found myself holding a CD by a band called Cloud Cult, titled “Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus.”

WTF? I huffed and started to get out of the car to go back and exchange this unwanted mystery CD for the jazz CD I had selected from the racks. Then I started looking at the cover. It displayed a quirky pen & ink drawing of a little boy on a rocking horse with an astronaut helmet on. And there were 23 tracks with intriguing titles like “Living on the Outside of your skin,” and “Transistor Radio”. Well 23 is a strange but lucky number, and If you have been exposed to (bored by) any of my music you know I have a thing for astronauts/cosmonauts and old radios.

So I finished peeling the CD and put it in my car stereo. Wow! I love this CD. Cloud Cult seems to be a projection from the mind of Craig Minowa. The songs are short, lo-fi, home recorded masterpieces with a dreamy quality. They tell the kinds of stories that roll through your head when you are just waking up but you aren’t ready to move yet. Personal and emotional yet profound and universal in nature, these songs paint the room with colors that are usually only found inside your head. The music is strange yet comfortingly familiar all at once.

I highly recommend Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus (http://www.cloudcult.com/).
I am also glad to learn that Cloud Cult has taken a non-traditional route into the record stores and their love for the environment. On their website the history of the band is laid out, detailing the trials and tribulations of these artists who want to make the world a better place.

I’m glad this CD found me and hope it finds its way into your hands as well.
NOTE: the album art above is from the band website (http://www.cloudcult.com/) and is completely different yet the same as the cover on my CD. Just another bit of weirdness connected with this mystery CD.