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.
If Ultimate Painting’s soft-edged psych-pop teased at the sounds of the ’60s, Modern Nature evokes the psychedelic era’s ambitions through open-ended song structures. With a mix of quietly pulsing beats, hushed guitars, and whispered vocals, the songs recast Cooper’s music as coming from someplace above the fray. There are too many pulsing Neu!-influenced drums, wild saxophone solos (by Jeff Tobias of New York jazz-noise outfit Sunwatchers), and organ drones for an algorithm to tag the forward-pushing How to Live as “folk.” But the music shares some of the ache and inscrutability of Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band. Everything—from the swirling cello of “Criminals” to the pulsing motorik throbs of “Footsteps” and “Seance”—is held together by Cooper’s quiet voice and his sweet yearning for a different plane.
The loud/quiet/loud eclecticism might feel forced if it weren’t in service of such a coherent mood, a series of scenes viewed through the same rain-spotted train window. Cooper sounds most at home when his voice seems like it’s about to dissolve into the vining parts and the woody paths behind him. “Turbulence” is the album’s most fragile moment, a lilting melody not unlike John Lennon’s “Julia,” Cooper’s voice rising over a guitar pattern and organ. At their best, Modern Nature offer glimpses into the same enlightened place they accessed on their debut EP, where introspective folk songwriting and churning classical minimalism are one and the same.
On dystopian laments like “Criminals,” How To Live might be heard as a break-up album, though with society as a whole instead of any individual partner. A handwritten liner-note zine accompanying the album underscores how the band’s name does double duty, calling on both the countryside and our current blighted sense of humanity. Modern Nature’s songs might be heard as reminders that true escape isn’t about splitting town, ghosting everybody you know, and throwing your phone in the ocean. How To Live uncovers an internal landscape just as wide open, much easier to get to, and even harder to escape from.
Buy: Rough Trade
