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MODERN NATURE

Modern Nature

The Heat Warps

    When Modern Nature toured their last album, 2023’s No Fixed Point In Space, it became apparent to Jack Cooper – the band’s main creative force – that they were already pulling away from the free, open-ended approach they had spent five years working towards; almost as if the music had become so abstract and elasticated, it now had to snap back towards something more structured. As they found themselves naturally locking into more fixed grooves, he realised a new direction had been set. Their new album – The Heat Warps – is the triumphant manifestation of where that new direction took them.

    In the aftermath, Cooper’s songwriting, which had become increasingly impressionistic, found a new focus and the idea of making an album that followed a similar path to the last two increasingly seemed obtuse. The purpose was to forge a radical change. The core trio of him, Jim Wallis (drums) and Jeff Tobias (bass guitar) were augmented by a new guitarist – Tara Cunningham.

    Modern Nature’s recent records have reflected an insular life. Cooper had moved out to the countryside in 2021 and had, in his words, been “hibernating” while he started a family. He felt this new band was a symbol for his reawakening and the perfect vessel for him to continue to explore themes that he’s sung about with Modern Nature – collectivism, our relationship with the natural world, the weight of consciousness – but with more directness and purpose. The key was the new dual guitar sound.

    “I’ve always been drawn to bands where two guitarists work as a unit to move around and colour the rhythm section,” explains Cooper. “I’d been listening to the demos Television did with Brian Eno in the day and then that night I played with Tara for the first time at an improvised music show. We have a very similar approach to the guitar and that extends to the way we sing, so it gives the music an interesting balance.

    “What we do is mirrored; a symmetry on either side of what Jim and Jeff are doing in the rhythm section. We’ve played with lots of amazing musicians who continue to orbit around what we do, but Tara joining the band felt like finding the other side to the square. Previous records have been performed by upwards of fifteen people but it was apparent the four of us could achieve something more powerful and more direct.”

    In the time Modern Nature has been a band, the world has undoubtedly changed. The words Cooper had been writing previously were somewhat ambiguous but it had started to feel like he was sitting on the fence and that was something he needed to address. “Every day we’re confronted with a confusing and scary world,” he says. “Making music and creating things can feel flippant or unnecessary, but my own world view was defined and influenced by art and artists who weren’t afraid to highlight and offer solutions: Public Enemy, The Smiths or a wider American counterculture.”

    “The community we’ve built our life around – artists, musicians and the people who gravitate to these things as way of communicating – are struggling to reconcile how they fit into an increasingly cruel world. This album, the themes and the lyrics are directed towards them because I think there are still seasons to be optimistic. There are amazing things happening all around us and it’s up to communities like ours to double down on the things we believe in. It feels as if being part of a group like Modern Nature and making an album that’s open, optimistic and ambitious is in itself part of the solution.”

    As the new band started to play together more, the energy, excitement and telepathy between them gained momentum and it became clear they needed to make a record that captured that. They locked into a process where they booked a couple of shows, directly followed by four days in the studio (the all-analogue Gizzard Recording in east London). They’d spend two weeks living in each other’s pockets – a very condensed rush of creativity.

    “It’s rare to hear a recording of a band playing in a room together,” adds Cooper. “And that interaction, the discrepancies in timing, synergy, in pitch, that’s where the magic really is, I think, and that’s what we wanted to capture.”

    One additional (and slightly unlikely) influence on the record was Andrew Weatherall. Before he passed away, he’d played Modern Nature on his NTS show and Cooper was thrilled that he liked them. He made it an aim to make a record Weatherall might have played to his friends late at night. His motto “Fail we may, sail we must” is what the Can-esque track Pharaoh is about.

    “It’s difficult to stay aware of the world around you without becoming despondent,” says Cooper. “Pharoah makes the case for finding a personal philosophy and trying to live a life that might inspire others or at the very least not hurt them.”

    Elsewhere, Radio touches on the contempt capitalism has for the natural world. The line “there’s a fire all around” offers a kind of gallows humour. Cooper adds that recently they played the songs on a day that the news was showing footage of the Los Angeles fires. It occurred to him that it was perhaps an insensitive subject to be singing about but there again – in his words – he feels it’s “important not to turn away from these things.

    ” The same desire not to shy away might also be attributed to Source, which touches on the recent riots in the UK directed towards asylum seekers, inspired by misinformation spread online.

    For all this wrestling with the grimmer realities of 2025, The Heat Warps is ultimately not a record entirely consumed by anxieties. Its frequently beautiful sounds offer consolation and a wide-eyed optimism amid all the upheaval. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the transcendent album closer, Totality. As Cooper explains: “It was fascinating spending time in America as the country geared up for the 2024 solar eclipse. The news stations covered the event in the same way they’d cover a big football game or the Oscars. Everywhere I went, people were talking about the eclipse and for a few days it really seemed to capture the public’s imagination.“My friend’s dad had organised a huge party and had obviously done his homework. When he was running us through his preparation and how the day was going to go down, he said, ‘We’re hoping for totality, ’ and it blew my mind.

    “The day of the eclipse I was driving through New Mexico and we stopped by the side of the road with hundreds of other people gazing up to the heavens. It felt exciting to be part of something that clearly resonated with people on such a profound level. It’s a fitting album closer and somewhere in there is a philosophy; a romantic nihilism”. And at its heart, right there is the core of Modern Nature’s appeal. Never more so than on this new record.


    TRACK LISTING

    Side A
    Pharaoh
    Radio
    Glance
    Source

    Side B
    Jetty
    Alpenglow
    Zoology
    Takeover
    Totality

    The Charlatans

    Modern Nature - 2023 Reissue

      Produced by The Charlatans and Jim Spencer, and mixed by Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Portishead), ‘Modern Nature’ is the band’s 12th studio album. Originally released in 2015, the album features a cacophony of contributors: from drummers Pete Salisbury (The Verve), Stephen Morris (New Order) and Gabriel Gurnsey (Factory Floor), to Kate Bush’s backing singers Melanie Marshall and Sandra Marvin, strings by Sean O’Hagan and brass courtesy of Jim Paterson. Described by Q ‘as one the finest of their career’, the album debuted in the top 10 in the UK Albums Chart . Pressed on transparent yellow vinyl.

      TRACK LISTING

      Side 1:
      1. Talking In Tones
      2. So Oh
      3. Come Home Baby
      4. Keep Enough
      5. In The Tall Grass
      6. Emilie
      Side 2:
      1. Let The Good Times Be Never Ending
      2. I Need You To Know
      3. Lean In
      4. Trouble Understanding
      5. Lot To Say

      Modern Nature

      No Fixed Point In Space

        No Fixed Point In Space, the third full-length album by Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature, takes the palette of sound and themes that were honed on 2021’s Island Of Noise and launches them into an expansive world of openness and vivid technicolour. It’s a music that hasn’t been heard before; as melodic as anything Cooper has produced but framed by rhythms and instrumentation that reflect the chaos, unpredictability and colour of the natural world.

        Certain moorings - woodwind, percussion, strings and Cooper’s lambent voice - are still present and recognisable from No Fixed Point In Space’s predecessor, Island Of Noise but the new record marks a shift to utilising musical notation as a point of departure, from which the group explore the space around suggested notes and rhythms to create a semi-improvised, semi-composed ensemble performance. These explorations of partly organised chance were recorded live and directly to tape.

        This approach gives the music a remarkably fresh feel; songs pulse and evolve. The changes between movements, verse and choruses are almost all ambiguous. During the album’s opener Tonic, a verse of hushed brevity washes away into a passage of overwhelmingly vibrant orchestration.


        TRACK LISTING

        1. Tonic
        2. Murmuration
        3. Orange
        4. Cascade
        5. Sun
        6. Tapestry
        7. Ensō

        Modern Nature

        Island Of Noise

          Since the demise of his previous band Ultimate Painting, Jack Cooper – under his Modern Nature guise – has never stopped looking ahead, exploring, and reaching for something further. Since 2019, he’s released an EP, mini album Annual, one full length LP, one 7” and three live cassettes – in the process mapping out astonishing new terrain. Island Of Noise presents an obvious new peak in his discography.

          “Mesmerising... A treasure trove of interesting musical ideas, as well as a source of restorative solace.” The Guardian – 4 stars ****

          “On Island Of Noise Modern Nature’s Jack Cooper folds together much of what he’s already done – illuminated pop, exploratory improvisations, post-Canterbury prog – and locates a common thread, expanding outwards with the help of free-music pioneers saxophonist Evan Parker and bassist John Edwards.” Uncut – 9/10

          “Jack Cooper captures a sense of mystery and magic on his second album as Modern Nature, using gentle folk rock as the base for a subtle evocation of peacefulness.” The Times – 4 stars ****

          TRACK LISTING

          1 Tempest
          2 Dunes
          3 Performance
          4 Ariel
          5 Bluster
          6 Symmetry
          7 Masque
          8 Brigade
          9 Spell
          10 Build

          Modern Nature

          Rydalwater

            ‘Rydalwater’, a 10-minute improvised guitar composition by Jack Cooper (Modern Nature), will be released over two sides of a 7″ single, out 10 March,

            Originally commissioned as an improvised piece for the Caught by the River programme for Aerial Festival back in September, Modern Nature’s ‘Rydalwater’ is now to become the twelfth release on Caught by the River's ‘Rivertones' label (with artwork by Tara Okon). 

            Modern Nature

            Annual

              Released in August 2019, Modern Nature’s debut album - How to Live - crossed the urban and rural into each other. Plaintive cello strains melted into motorik beats. Pastoral field recordings drifted through looping guitar figures. Rising melodies shone with reflective saxophone accents, placing the record somewhere between the subtle mediations of Talk Talk, the stirring folk of Anne Briggs and the atmospheric waves of Harmonia. The album was met with universal acclaim and featured in a number of publication’s ‘Best Of 2019’ lists. As the group took the album out on the road, Modern Nature became something even more expansive. “It feels like there's scope and room to grow. I want the group to feel fluid and that whoever's playing with us can express themselves and interpret what they think this music is” says bandleader Jack Cooper.

              Their new mini-album Annual, recorded in December 2019 at Gizzard Studio in London, is another step towards something more liberated and a world away from the sound of Jack Cooper's previous bands. Will Young sits this one out, concentrating on his work with Beak, but How To Live collaborator Jeff Tobias takes a more central role, alongside percussionist Jim Wallis.

              Jack explains how 'Annual' came about:
              “Towards the end of 2018, I began filling a new diary with words, observations from walks, descriptions of events, thoughts...free associative streams of just... stuff. Reading back, as the year progressed from winter to spring, the tone of the diary seemed to change as well... optimism crept in, brightness and then things began to dip as autumn approached... warmth, isolation again and into winter. I split the diary into four seasons and used them as the template for the four main songs. The shorter instrumental songs on the record are meant to signify specific events and transitions from one season to the next. I figured it wouldn't be a very long record, but to me it stands up next to 'How To Live' in every way.”

              ‘Annual’ opens with ‘Dawn’ which brings to mind the peace and space of Miles Davis' ‘In A Silent Way’; it rises from nothing like shoots reaching for the light. “I wanted Dawn to feel like the moment you realise spring is coming, when you notice blossom on the trees or nights getting lighter. On lead track ‘Flourish’, it's clear Modern Nature have moved on from the first album; as muted percussion and double-bass stirs behind Cooper's Slint-like ambling guitar; the chorus soars into a collaged crescendo. “Flourish is like when my part of the world coming to life. I live on the edge of London between Leytonstone and Epping Forest, so the signs of spring are very apparent round here - flowers, light, people talking in their gardens. Mayday started as an outro to Flourish or ‘Spring’ as it was titled originally. The idea was a segueway into the summer section to represent the sort of collective excitement a city gets once it realises summer is here."

              The summer of Jack's diary inspired 'Halo'. “Wanstead Flats where I live, change a lot in the summer; a haze descends on them instead of the spring mist and the city's proximity is more apparent. Blue bags of empty cans and scorched grass from out of control barbeques.” Arnulf Lindner on double-bass recalls the playing of Danny Thompson with Jeff Tobias' wonderfully lyrical saxophone referencing Pharoah Sanders. On ‘Harvest’ Jack takes a backseat with Kayla Cohen of Itasca singing. “All these songs are in the same key but the melody was above my range. I'd been playing the new Itasca record all the time and just reached out. The economy with which she sings is perfect.”

              “The intention with the record was for it to feel like a circle, so Wynter reflects the opening. I guess having to get up and flip the record destroys the illusion so it's a rare occasion where listening with the ability to just loop the album into another year is closer to our intention.”

              ‘Annual’ then acts both like a companion piece to the band’s ‘How To Live’ debut but also a pointer to the paths ahead. Cooper has already started work on the next album, his speed of output an indication of the excitement and creativity that surrounds the project. Who will be involved and what the touchstones might be are yet to be firmly established but then who would have it any other way with this most fascinatingly free-flowing and mutable of groups? 


              TRACK LISTING

              1 Dawn
              2 Flourish
              3 Mayday
              4 Halo
              5 Harvest
              6 Ritual
              7 Wynter

              The city and the country both have distinct, vibrant energies - but there’s something happening in between, too. As factories give way to fields, and highways drift into gravelly roads, the friction can be palpable, the aura electric. The lines between city and country were on Jack Cooper’s mind when he named his new band Modern Nature. He took the phrase from the diaries of filmmaker Derek Jarman, written on the coast of Kent in his Dungeness cottage. Visiting Jarman’s home, Cooper was struck by what he calls a “weird mix of urban and rural” - such as the way a nuclear power station sits next to open grasslands.

              On Modern Nature’s debut album, ‘How To Live’, urban and rural cross into each other. Plaintive cello strains melt into motorik beats. Pastoral field recordings drift through looping guitar figures. Rising melodies shine with reflective saxophone accents, placing the record somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle between the expansive motorik of Can, the Canterbury progressiveness of Caravan and the burgeoning experimentalism of Talk Talk’s ‘Colour Of Spring’.

              STAFF COMMENTS

              Barry says: Having penned a succession of hazy, indie-rock affairs, Jack Cooper (formerly of Manchester's own Trof fame) breaks out a beautiful folky wanderer, heavy on reverb and drifting guitar ambience, but maintaining the melodic leaning that has earned him so many delighted fans. This is beautiful work, and possibly my favourite of his considerable output.

              TRACK LISTING

              Bloom
              Footsteps
              Turbulence
              Criminals
              Séance
              Nightmares
              Peradam
              Oracle
              Nature
              Devotee


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