What does a 10$ concert ticket get you these days? With Minnesota band Cloud Cult, the 10$ goes a long way.
This eclectic and lively band played Toronto’s El Mocambo on Monday night to a small audience, and marked my first lengthy exposure to their music; I first caught wind of Cloud Cult in 2003, listening to Ottawa’s CHUO while in my last year of high school – the song was “Breakfast With My Shadow” – and until this past week I had yet to hear a full album’s worth of material.
To put it simply, a Cloud Cult performance is rewarding both sonically and visually. Strings and excellent male/female vocal harmonies are occasionally juxtaposed with electronic beats and loops, vocal modulation and megaphones. The band is accompanied by a visual artist, who attacks an initially blank canvas, creating a beautiful painting in response to the music. The painting is subsequently auctioned after the show, and I believe some of the proceeds from the painting go towards aiding environmental causes (aside from the singer holding an environmental science degree, the band tries to be as carbon-neutral as possible: an eco-friendly tour van, merchandise made from recycled materials, and a studio powered by geo-thermal and wind energy – but I digress). The painting, shown here, had a bid placed around 100$ just after the show ended (I’m not sure how much it finally went for).
I picked up their latest album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), and sadly, it does not do their live show justice – however I am not disappointed. This concert was a great deal for 10$, and definitely raised the bar in terms of a full audiovisual experience.
For more information on Cloud Cult, see their last.fm page or myspace. Thanks to Ana for the photos from the show.
Listen: “The Ghost Inside Our House” by Cloud Cult from the album “Feel Good Ghosts”.
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