Description
Label Review.
2019 debut album also available on Vinyl.
Our Overview.
New group formed by Jack Cooper of English alt-rock band Ultimate Painting, Will Young of lo-fi group Beak>, and Aaron Neveu of Woods, Modern Nature are releasing ‘How To Live' and there’s a quiet, devotional beauty that sits behind the filth and noise. 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’.
As he began writing songs, Cooper was also tuning to the vibes of ‘Earth Loop’, an instrumental solo album by Beak>’s Will Young (under the name Moon Gangs). For a long time, Cooper had hoped to work more with Young, who almost joined his first band, Mazes, and was in the touring version of his next group, Ultimate Painting.
The richness of the ideas in these songs is matched by the resonance of the music. Cooper and Young’s organic compositions gain skin and muscle through the thoughtful cello of Rupert Gillett, the insistent drumming of Aaron Nevue (of compatriot outfit Woods), and the expressive saxophone of Jeff Tobias, from Brooklyn jazz / rock juggernaut Sunwatchers. Each track on ‘How to Live’ evolved as these creative forces joined the group, and it shows. The entire album courses with both precision and vitality. The band is closely tuned to the core of each piece, but also unafraid to throw themselves into every moment.
It’s a work of surprising layers and limitless depths, impressing more strongly with each listen. Modern Nature may have been inspired by the line between urban and rural, but with ‘How To Live’ they’ve gone a step further, and created their own complete world.
“Every song we record or musician we gain, another door seems to open on a route that’s worth pursuing,” Cooper says. Modern Nature are carving their own route through the undergrowth, one that opens the listener up to the British folk tradition and a new frontier of organic sound.
LP - Limited Green Vinyl with Fanzine and Download.