Digging through the vault tonight, unearthing gems I missed the past years. I came across this session by Cloud Control, recorded for Lauren Laverne’s BBC 6 Music program on September 17, 2013.
No excuse why I didn’t run it twelve years ago – sometimes the onslaught of new sessions and releases gets overwhelming. But in the case of Cloud Control, I must’ve had my mind somewhere else because this is not a band to miss, and since they’ve recently reunited there’s no excuse not to make up for lost time.
A little background in case you missed it the first time around (thanks Wikipedia):
Growing up in the Blue Mountains, the four members of Cloud Control (Alister Wright, Heidi Lenffer, Ulrich Lenffer, Jeremy Kelshaw) met at the rehearsals for The Pirates of Penzance. They entered their first “Battle of the Bands”, which they subsequently won. They recorded and released their debut EP, Cloud Control, in November 2007. The single “Death Cloud”, was picked up by the Australian youth radio station Triple J and received strong airplay.
After a string of festival appearances and tours with a variety of Australian bands, the band released its first album, Bliss Release, in 2010. They recorded the album in the house of their producer, Liam Judson. Two singles were released from the album, “Gold Canary” and “There’s Nothing in the Water We Can’t Fight”. The latter appeared at number 18 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of 2010. The single “Gold Canary” was voted as Single of the Week in the Rebel Playlist on the UK’s BBC Radio 6 Music 2010.
The band supported Foo Fighters along with You Am I at their 2011 concert for flood relief in Brisbane, Queensland.
Their song “Just for Now” was used in the 2012 movie Magic Mike.
Their second album, Dream Cave, was released on 9 August 2013.
On 3 January 2015, the bass guitarist, Jeremy Kelshaw, announced his departure from the group on the band’s Facebook page.
The band’s fourth studio album, Zone was released on 1 September 2017. Their label said the album was written in a small beach house near the NSW regional centre of Forster and has been described as “profound, but also flippant, euphoric, but conceptual”. The album peaked at number 53 on the ARIA Charts.
The band quietly disbanded in 2018, with Alister Wright beginning a new solo project, Vlossom, while Heidi Lenffer pursued entrepreneurial work as the leader of FEAT.
In 2025, Cloud Control announced their reunion for a run of shows celebrating the 15-year anniversary of Bliss Release.
That should get you up to speed up to this year. Whether this reunion is only temporary or it sticks is another question – and whether part of that run of shows also includes a foray into the U.S. is another, and judging from the current climate with folks arriving from other countries being dubious it may be a foregone conclusion they might skip the U.S. as it appears many bands and artists are this year. Looking at their tour schedule, only Harvest Rock in Adelaide in October is on the list as their tour started in May of this year and stayed pretty much around Australia – perhaps next year. Fingers crossed they stick around – we need them.
Still, no excuse not to dive into their website and see what’s available.
In the meantime, Press Play and crank it up.
