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‘New band from former Ultimate Painting songwriter Jack Cooper blends introspective songwriting with churning experimentation in earnest search of a different plane of existence’ Pitch Fork

Read recent album pitchfork review here

Modern Nature are an experimental indie rock band I guess, hard to pin down. The core group is Jack Cooper (guitar and vocals), Jeff Tobias (bass) and Jim Wallis (drums).

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, one full-length LP, last year’s mini-album Annual, one 7” and three live cassettes, as well as the minimalist system music of this year’s Tributaries LP on Astral Spirits – in the process mapping out astonishing new terrain.

Their new album Island Of Noise presents an obvious new peak in his discography, combining Cooper’s celebrated songwriting and compositional skills with a free-flowing expansiveness coloured by British free music luminaries such as saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Alexander Hawkins, bassist John Edwards and violinist Alison Cotton, as well as long-term collaborators Jeff Tobias and Jim Wallis.

The album released – using only sustainable material – on 180g vinyl complete with a lavish booklet featuring the work of ten other artists, including Booker-nominated poet Robin Robertson, mycologist Merlin Sheldrake, illustrator Sophy Hollington, musician Eugene Chadbourne and writer Richard King, that reinterpret, deconstruct or take inspiration from the ten tracks on the record.

Modern Nature have also shared a trailer for an accompanying film of the album. Around the release there were four exclusive screenings around the country in partnership with Caught by the River, followed by Q&A’s with frontman Jack Cooper (full details below). Of the film, Cooper says:

“We listen to music in lots of different circumstances, but it’s increasingly rare to sit down and listen to an album without distractions, so that was really the initial aim with this film; to make something that could focus one’s attention on the music. When Conan Roberts and I started filming it at the start of the year, it quickly took on a life of its own as it built on one of the album’s main themes; finding order within chaos. Then as the year panned out, a narrative emerged with a country re-emerging from the pandemic.”