Cloud Cult have been riding high lately. Their two most recent albums, The Meaning of 8 and Owl&Bear favorite Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes), have marked a creative peak for the band, the hard-won result of ten years of touring, seemingly insurmountable hardships, and a recorded output far too large to shake a stick at. The Minnesota band even took a victory lap with last year’s No One Said It Would Be Easy, a documentary that chronicled the ebbs and flows of the group’s career.

It seems that Cloud Cult haven’t quite finished turning their collective eye toward the past, because they’re re-envisioning, remixing, remastering, rearranging, and finally rereleasing two of their older albums. On December 8th, the previously out-of-print They Live On The Sun (2003) and Aurora Borealis (2004) will be reborn, Siamese twin-style, as a double disc reissue with bonus tracks. The home-recorded albums have been given a welcome shot in the arm thanks to the remixing and remastering process, and fans of the band’s more recent output will be well served to find out how the band got to be so darn good. Here’s some info:

Lead singer/songwriter Craig Minowa created the albums during 18 months of seclusion at his Northern Minnesota organic farm after his two-year-old son passed away unexpectedly in 2002.

The albums, previously distributed by hand by the band to a small handful of Independent record stores, will now be available nationally as a special double-disc package. In typical Cloud Cult fashion, the albums are 100% post-consumer recycled material, printed with soy inks and the band powered the mastering with wind energy (purchasing green energy credits). Cloud Cult has planted over a thousand trees to absorb pollutants from album releases and touring.

But the environmentally-conscious band isn’t only looking backward. Instead of resting on their laurels—which this past year included spots on the Coachella lineup and a national tour with Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s—the band is gearing up to record a brand new album this Fall. Here’s hoping they continue their hot streak.

In the meantime, you can buy the reissue of They Live On The Sun and Aurora Borealis here. And because we know you like to actually hear music sometimes instead of just reading about it, here’s “Breakfast With My Shadow”, fresh off the rerelease:

Stream: “Breakfast With My Shadow” from Aurora Borealis
[audio:cloudcult-breakfast.mp3]