Indie Rock Hit Parade Live Session: Modern Nature
The British band performs songs from their album, The Heat Warps (and beyond), live in our studio…
Joining us in the studio for this Indie Rock Hit Parade session is the latest project from a prolific British songwriter and composer. Though he had already released a record produced by Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, we first met Blackpool-born Jack Cooper some 15 years ago as a member of the band Mazes. That group’s fuzzy power pop sound only hinted at Cooper’s ambitious musical vision. After that group’s end, Cooper spent a number of years as co-leader of Ultimate Painting, a critically acclaimed combo whose music sat closer to the psychedelic jangle of Syd Barrett and Robyn Hitchcock. Since 2019, Cooper’s main creative outlet has been Modern Nature, a loose collective of skilled players who explore the outer reaches of experimental folk and jazz.
On earlier outings, particularly their 2022 multimedia project Island of Noise, Modern Nature’s performances were often boundary-less and abstract. For their latest set, Cooper took inspiration from a certain Liverpool quartet to ‘get back’ to more structured songwriting. Part of that adjustment came thanks to the addition of guitarist Tara Cunningham to the core lineup of Cooper, bassist Jeff Tobias, and drummer Jim Wallis. The songs on The Heat Warps still offer some extended arrangements, but the approach is more locked-in.
Modern Nature’s IRHP session presents three selections from The Heat Warps, along with one of the new songs the busy band was testing out on their North American tour. They also tackle a late-period favorite from the Fab Four, appropriate given the band’s visit to our studio came just a week before the anniversary of the storied ‘Rooftop Concert.’