089: Cloud Cult - Different Kind Of Day
In those not-so-long-ago days between not much and everything, between the having to buy physical items to listen and keeping the majority of recorded music inside our pockets, I found a handful of websites that would offer up indie rock albums for download, illegal treasures that heaved away in the night and were there waiting the next morning to be transferred to a minidisc for my walks to and from work.
I grabbed most things that fell into the indie/folk category, blasted the songs for a day or two and then deleted the ones that stick and filed the ones that did. It was a short burst of gathering that guided my listening for years to come, a place where I found some of my favourite bands and labels and albums, and also a space where you could bask in the glow of something you'd stumble upon and never cross paths with again, save for that one perfect moment.
Cloud Cult could possibly fit into both of those situations. Their The Meaning Of Eight LP holds a special place in my heart, discovered during those lush days of listening described above, but for whatever reason I never dug any deeper. I never knew where they were from (Viroqua, Wisconsin), how many records they went on to make (eleven, to-date), whether they carried on or shrank away (very much still active).
Then, in this new world of apps and algorithms, I stumbled upon their new collection, the eleven-song Alchemy Creek which was released in early August. On a long drive back from the east coast to the west, after a long day spent dancing with the emotions of so many strangers, chasing the early September sunshine as it folded away into the evening, I played Alchemy Creek from vibrant start to heartfelt close and it all fell into place as if finely choreographed by other hands.
Occasionally untethered in a Modest Mouse-like burst of intensity, but mostly warm and tender and draped in melancholy, it was a nice reminder at a perfect time for it, that the things we carry with us don't necessarily fade just because we can't always find a place for them, just because other songs and sounds and people and places take on more prominence. We can always find new ways to tap into older things that once meant so much.
As Craig Minowa sings on the album's stirring final track: "Life is full of things we cannot change, and maybe that's ok." Prefaced by a seven-minute instrumental introduction, it's the sound of so many things coming together at just the right time, in just the right way. Or at least it was for me, on that drive. It might or might not mean the same for you; but something will, and I'm sure that that's ok.
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