Album Review: How to Live by Modern Nature

Modern Nature took their name from filmmaker Derek Jarman's diaries, which he wrote in a cottage on the coast of Kent. This scenic image sums up the group wonderfully on an endearing debut. The sombre cellos that serve as the album's introduction signpost the melancholy journey to come, but the real surprise is how rich 'How To Live' really is. Modern Nature feel like a long-lost cousin of post-rock pioneers Talk Talk or drone-rockers Wooden Shjips on tracks like 'Footsteps', as they combine simple guitar work with motorik beats, soft synth pads and saxophone improvisations.

Full Review >>

A woven basket of bucolic British folk, woolly free jazz, and pulsing organic trance, Modern Nature burrow themselves into an unusual niche. A project of former Ultimate Painting chief Jack Cooper's and Moon Gangs' Will Young's, the duo inhabit a murky space where punchy mod drums, burbling analog synths, and unwieldy saxophones dance with grassy field recordings, fingerpicked guitar, and secretive vocals suggesting ancient rites in natural spaces. Delivered by Bella Union, How to Live is the group's first full-length release and improves upon the four-song Nature EP which they released earlier in 2019.

Full Review >>

British songwriter Jack Cooper's former group Ultimate Painting paid tribute to the southern Colorado countercultural artists' community Drop City, which formed in 1965 and was abandoned to biker gangs by the early 1970s. When Ultimate Painting imploded last year, and Cooper's new group Modern Nature debuted with an 11-minute piece of cosmic minimalism, one might've expected them to dive further into the swirl. But the band's full-length debut, How To Live, anchored by Cooper and BEAK>'s Will Young, offers a more grounded escape route, blurring ideas of city and country in search of transcendence.

Full Review >>