Cloud Cult He’s canned the maple syrup, and he’s recalibrated the system that measures electricity use of his solar-powered outlets.
He’s orchestrated a nascent song, and he’s spent the necessary hours on his record label, making decisions that reconcile ethics and business for nearly 15 years of music as Cloud Cult.
After a busy week dedicated as always to presence-driven art and the environment, Craig Minowa is also ordering a few hundred carefully curated tree seedlings for his nonprofit Earthology Institute. They would soon travel to his 30-acre parcel of land in Wisconsin, near the border of Minnesota and Iowa.
IMAGE BY CODY YORK
To say Craig has a substantive answer to the question, “Tell me about your week so far,” is an understatement. So it’s understandable that when he wants to listen to music as a pastime, he seeks something he can’t analyze. He digs into the big band music and before-bubblegum pop of the ‘40s and ‘50s.
That’s partly because his own songwriting, backed by a band of eight including his wife and live painter, Connie, sits at the other end of the spectrum. Minowa can sing like he’s whispering into a baby’s ear, and he can sing like he’s screaming into a quarry. It’s music with an acoustic soul, but twisted in are strings and found sounds, toy pianos and electronic drums.
The music of Cloud Cult is thoroughly cared for, but its raw edges are retained. Come to think, it goes quite well with a breath of fresh air on a Friday night.