Future Clouds and Radar

Future Clouds and Radar is an American rock group from Austin, Texas. It was founded by Robert Harrison after the dissolution of his previous group, Cotton Mather, and features several of the same musicians.

History

Following the commercial failure of The Big Picture, Cotton Mather quietly ended in 2003. Harrison stepped away from the music world for some time to focus on raising his family. When he returned to making music in 2006, he assembled a collective of musicians and set about "creating music that couldn't be boxed in". Although the music was recorded by a vast array of musicians with Harrison as the only constant member, he still chose to present it as a band to emphasize the contributions of the other musicians. The first release from the group, and the first release on Harrison's Star Apple Kingdom label, was an eponymous double album, released in 2007. Future Clouds And Radar was much more experimental and varied than the work of Cotton Mather, incorporating genres as wide-ranging as reggae, psychedelia, avant-garde, and ambient music in addition to pop and rock. The following year, the group released a second album, Peoria, which continued in the same musical vein. Also in 2008, a single-disc distillation of the debut album was released in the UK, removing eleven tracks and adding three otherwise unavailable acoustic performances. The group never officially disbanded, and occasionally still plays around Austin, but have not released anything since 2009. Although Harrison's now-defunct blog stated that the "Songs from the I Ching" project would feature music from both of his projects, everything that has been released as of 2019 has been credited to Cotton Mather.

Videos

Nickelodeon animator Keith Graves was chosen to create a video of the song "Dr. No." Other videos include:

Reception

Austinist described the group as "Beatles-esque psychedelia", while The New Yorker described the music as "sprawling orchestral art rock." NPR wrote ""Audacious? Sure. But undeniably impressive." Texas public radio station KUT listed it among the best albums of the year 2007, while Pop Narcotic listed it in its top 10 of the year.

Discography