It’s somewhat misleading to label Blue Mountains group Cloud Control as folk-pop. Slapping a genre on a band is at its best descriptive and at its worst demeaning, for the term ‘folk-pop’ does nothing to capture the beauty of the music that this extremely exciting collective is creating. It cannot possibly hope to convey the way in which their harmonies blend together so beautifully that you might think David Crosby directed them himself. Nor is it really helpful to describe them as part of the Blue Mountains ‘scene’, that most reductive of music industry terms and lingo. You are much better advised to listen to the subtle splendour of ‘Into The Line’, or the raw jubilation of ‘Buffalo Country’, if you really want to get an idea of what these guys are all about.

Despite their obvious talent and exposure, Cloud Control have no lofty expectations. Ulrich Lenffer, the band’s drummer, quips, ‘We’re content with 250 plays on Myspace’. Whereas so many bands suffer from a crippling desire to make it big at all costs, Cloud Control instead opt for an unabashed celebration of sound and the pure enjoyment of music. ‘I’m happy with where we are and where we’re going now, it’s so much fun’, vocalist/guitarist Alister Wright says. There is so much joy in Cloud Control’s music and when they are on stage they look equally as thrilled to be there. ‘Every gig is exciting’, claims keyboardist/vocalist Heidi, Ulrich’s sister.

Cloud Control’s origins are unremarkable. They formed for a uni battle of the bands competition, which Heidi had entered on a whim… before she even had a band. She recruited her brother on the drums, long-time friend Jeremy Kelshaw, and Alister who had been a couple of years beneath her at school. ‘There was a lot to learn’, Jeremy says, ‘in terms of how we all operated. We’re still finding out how we write and how we best operate’. Needless to say, they won that competition, which helped get them started.

‘There was a bit of an explosion from it’ recalls Jeremy, ‘but more it was just the finance to back our E.P., which was good’. They were also able to catch the eye of FBI radio. ‘The music director from FBI has been behind us the whole way’, Alister says. But Cloud Control seem to value the face to face encouragement they have received more than anything else. ‘One of the biggest things’, Alister says, ‘was just when the sound guy came up to us and was like “Hey, I really like your songs”. I was so stoked, and he said “maybe I could get you a gig in the city”.

The band was able to gather enough momentum from winning the Battle of the Bands to record their EP of 6 songs, all of which are strong – they are right to be proud of it. ‘We were all really happy with the E.P.’, Jeremy says. ‘I don’t think a lot of bands can produce material that they are so happy with.’ The tracks are diverse, but by no means lacking in cohesion. A lot of this can be attributed to the way in which Cloud Control write their songs: they have no principal songwriter, so every track has a unique, organic story to its creation. This is a band that relies heavily on chemistry, each member bringing their own ideas and talents to the songwriting process. ‘It’s different for every song’, Alister says. Having so many contributors means that Cloud Control have to navigate through a lot of ideas. Jeremy says, ‘the end result is that we wade through a lot of bad material to find a good song. We are pretty quick to shoot something down. I think we might be a bit to quick to shoot things down sometimes.’

Based on the consistency of their EP, you have to wonder if there are a few gems that never made it to recording. It’s hard to believe that a track like ‘Into The Line’ almost never existed. Alister recollects: ‘I had some lyrics written down on a book, but I didn’t have a song for it. There was this week where me and Jeremy were just jamming, and we recorded for about 20 minutes, and listened back to it and really didn’t like it. I was playing this riff, and I was like ‘this sucks’, but Jeremy was like, ‘nah let’s do it’. Jeremy: ‘It kind of came from how quick we are to can things. So I got fed up with that and said, ‘we’ll can it once it’s finished. So it got finished and we really liked it and brought the others in’.
The result is the standout track on the E.P. Dominated by a deep, grooving bassline and dreamy keys, it is the subtle harmonies of Alister and Heidi that really make the song something else. ‘It was really different the first time we rehearsed it’ Alister says, ‘because we’d never played anything slow before’, and Jeremy notes, ‘its one of the only songs we have that is the same rhythm the whole way’. With its ethereal atmosphere, it sounds akin to a more organic My Bloody Valentine.

The rest of the E.P. displays a much more stripped back 60’s folk-rock aesthetic, both in terms of the songwriting and also the way in which it was recorded. ‘Fine Teacher’ recalls impressions of the softer side of Jefferson Airplane, with its warm spring-time quality. When asked about the influence of the 60s on Cloud Control’s music, Heidi mentions ‘the melodies are kind of enduring’, and Jeremy remarks, ‘I think we respect their recording techniques as well. We recorded our E.P. live to tape’. This approach has definitely given the E.P. a feeling of immediacy, as if each time you put it on the band were playing in your living room, something that is sorely missing from the massively overdubbed modern music scene. Cloud Control are one of the few bands that have been able to pull this off without sounding completely amateurish.

With the E.P. having already been out for almost a year, Cloud Control are keen to move on. ‘At this stage’, Jeremy says, ‘we’re just wanting to finish up with E.P (promoting wise) and start writing and recording. We’ve already started writing new material – through June and July we are going to try and write as much as we can’. Given that most of the band are still studying at university, there is only so much time  they can put into the group. Alister says ‘At the end of this year, some of us are going to take time off’. Heidi is currently completing her masters in Media and Communications, writing her thesis on ‘user generated content’, and her brother Ulrich is also studying the same discipline, ‘Like brother like sister’, Jeremy jokes. Jeremy himself works in Industrial Relations, not your typical profession for a musician. The rest of the band refers to him as the ‘ombudsman’.

Despite these other commitments, Cloud Control have still had time to gig relentlessly and have begun to feel like they have developed a kinship with other local bands. ‘We had a really nice moment at the Essential Festival in Sydney’, Heidi says. ‘We were playing our show and we could point out about six local bands that are rapidly becoming our friends. It was a nice community moment’. There is the obvious connection to fellow Blue Mountains band Belles Will Ring – the two bands share the same manager and, at the risk of not practicing what I preach, the ‘folk-rock’ genre –  but Cloud Control also associate with Richard In Your Mind and Des Miller, or as Alister summarises, “basically, everyone on Broken Stone Records’. Many of these bands have had cover work created by the same artist, Greedy Hen, and also played similar venues to each other. Unsurprisingly, then, these are also the groups that Cloud Control point out as ones worth watching.  

Cloud Control are without doubt one of Australia’s most exciting emerging bands, and their democratic song-writing process is definitely a contributing factor. Chemistry ensures vitality, and it seems like they have been able to reach equilibrium between their different musical personalities. The best bands are always more than the sum of their parts.

Jeremy: ‘I think we have a fair idea of what our line of music is, our style – we find it hard to define, but I think we have a pretty good idea’. This understated confidence is a key element to Cloud Control’s magnetism - they have found the right mix between modesty and self-belief, and as such their music is sincere. Hence, it is the authenticity of their songs that is their most attractive attribute. Cloud Control are indeed a band to watch.