Flowting Clowds’ Warm, Inviting Sonics

The new duo by alt-music veterans Jeff Mueller and Sean Meadows will perform at Bay View’s Acme Records.

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Music Features

One of the rare joys of getting older is checking in to hear how your favorite musicians evolve over time. Yes, some performers remain one-trick ponies for their entire careers, putting out the same song year after year, refusing to note the passage of time. While there is a hint of joy in such obstinance, this approach ultimately comes across as either coldly calculating or willfully artificial. Yet there are artists who, as the years fly by, use their craft to make sense of getting older. One hears hints of their former selves in such material, but it is a self undeniably changed by history.

Thankfully, Flowting Clowds, the current project of Jeff Mueller (formerly of Rodan, June of 44, and Shipping News) and Sean Meadows (also of June of 44, along with Lungfish and The Sonora Pine), falls into the latter camp. Throughout the 1990s, the pair’s bands could be bombastic, melodramatic, and loud—all good things at the time. Yet 2025 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Engine Takes to the Water, June of 44’s debut album. To try to return to such “glory days” would be tempting. Instead, the duo has created a debut single (“Earth, Sun, Moon” b/w “There Are Rivers”) that, while rooted in the sounds of their past endeavors, presents a more scaled-down, more human version of their earlier work.

Such an aesthetic makes for a warm, inviting single. The pair’s take on “Earth, Sun, Moon,” the title track from Love and Rockets’ 1987 album, serves as a compelling introduction to the duo’s aesthetic. Flowting Clowds’ Bandcamp page notes the duo recorded their version of the track “with absolute respect and humbleness,” a phrase that could double as the band’s mission statement. On explaining the decision to cover Love and Rockets, Mueller explains that “More than anything, it just feels really good to play. When we get it right it feels like we’ve come close to capturing the essence and beauty of the original.” And the passage of time gives the song a sense of gravity that is unavoidable. Couplets such as “We are the kings/Of nothing at all” inevitably means something different to a teenager – which Mueller was when he first heard the song – than to a man in his mid-50s.

Emotional Territory

“There Are Rivers,” the single’s original track, mines similar emotional territory. Described by Mueller as “an eternal love song,” the track uses a repeating guitar line to lead the listener through an exploration of the geographies of life and love. Yet what starts as a simple song quickly expands as the guitar is joined by more instrumentation. This sonic reality is no accident; it is in fact the pair’s songwriting strategy. As Mueller explains, “My parts have always been lean and skeletal in form; he [Meadows] puts the pretty-pretty on them.”

Mueller and Meadows have been working on material since 2016 and, as Mueller notes, “we’ve had blueprints for much of the music we’re playing now since then.” The duo is now ready to share this music with the world, a development that, for Mueller, feels “like introducing an introverted friend you’ve had for years.” He admits it has been “a bit scary stepping out into something new,” but it has also been “exhilarating.” Here’s to hoping that feeling remains – and the pair release more songs soon.

Flowting Clowds perform at Acme Records & Music Emporium (2341 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.) on Saturday, Nov. 15. Doors open at 8:30 p.m.