Cloud One

by Andy KellmanThe studio-bound disco unit Cloud One made its debut in 1976 with the spectacular "Atmosphere Strut," a drifting, blissed-out nugget of underground disco that featured a repeated female vocal refrain of "We're gonna fly/Fly away." More importantly, what made the song stand out from everything else released at the time was the wild synthesizer line from producer and arranger Patrick Adams, who -- as with dozens of other short-lived disco acts shamelessly chucked into obscurity -- helmed the group. The nine-minute single was also the inaugural release on P&P, the first of several small labels run by Adams and partner Peter Brown. Several Cloud One singles followed throughout the late '70s on P&P-affiliated labels, such as Queen Constance, Golden Flamingo, Heavenly Star, and Sound of New York. The Atmosphere Strut LP, released in 1976, compiled some of the group's 12" material (the LP included a seven-minute edit of the dizzying "Disco Juice," another Adams classic). Funky Disco Tracks of Cloud One, an EP, was issued in 1978. A second LP, called Happy Music, appeared in 1979. Another Cloud One gem that's worth mentioning is "Patti Duke," a spacy number full of bizarro Moog manipulations and clusters of hand percussion that, when sped up, would probably sound like one of the hottest go-go tracks ever recorded. Thankfully, Cloud One's recorded works haven't been too difficult to come by. The Unidisc label issued Atmosphere Strut on CD in 1996, while M.I.L. Multimedia put out The Best of Cloud One two years later. The U.K.-based Counterpoint label has also provided a major service for those attempting to track down songs released by P&P and its offshoots; in 1997, the Disco Juice compilation was released and a second volume followed in 2002. Four Cloud One songs were included between the two discs.