One way of approaching Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus is to say that it’s the kind of record that “they” don’t make anymore - unified, stylistically diverse, invigorating, smart and danceable all at the same time. But that’s a bit of a cheat because Cloud Cult mastermind Craig Minowa has pretty clearly taken a page from fellow Minneapolis dweller Prince, who’s been making those kinds of records off and on for years. The other way to approach the album then is to say that “they” never really made albums like this and perhaps that’s closer to the truth.

Minowa has tapped into something here, giving us a batch of songs that are at once lyrically moving (“Transistor Radio”), childlike (take your pick) and aurally sophisticated in such a way that Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus doesn’t really hang like a collection of songs as much as it does one whole composition - one that shifts thematically and emotionally but one that unfolds with continuous revelation before your years until it comes to an end and you move eagerly back to the beginning.

But it’s not that Minowa appears to be doing much of anything deep here - in fact at times the songs succeed on the basis that he’s not doing much of anything at all. And whereas that wears thin in the world of pop sensations such as Dave Matthews, it’s perhaps one of Minowa’s greatest gifts, that mining of the simple until it feels and sounds like the most impressive and awe-inspiring thing ever.

In the end, Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus is a moving and exciting adventure from an artist we have to hear much, much, much more from. – Jedd Beaudoin