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"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 variety of publication's 'Best Of 2019' lists. As the group took the album out on the road, saxophonist Jeff Tobias' (Sunwatchers) role informed something even more expansive. “It feels like there's such 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 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'. “The 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's with Jeff Tobias' wonderfully lyrical saxophone referencing Pharoah Sanders. Cooper's vocals on this record barely rise above a whisper making Halo a perfect addition to the canon of bucolic North London songs of summer, alongside Donovan's Sunny Goodge Street or Nick Drake's Hazey Jane II.
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 most days and just reached out on a whim. Her phrasing and 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 circumstance 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? " BELLA UNION
