Modern Nature, the current musical project of Jack Cooper (Ultimate Painting, Mazes), will release new album No Fixed Point in Space on September 29 via Bella Union. “With this record,” Cooper says, “I wanted the music to reflect nature: beginnings and endings, arrivals and departures, process and chance. I wanted the music and the words to feel like roots, branches, mycelium, the intricacies of a dawn chorus, neurons firing, the unknown.”
Contributing to this third Modern Nature album are longtime collaborators Jeff Tobias (Sunwatchers) and Jim Wallis, as well as Anton Lukoszevieze, Mira Benjamin and Heather Roche of Apartment House, Alex Ward (This Is Not This Heat / Spiritualized), Dominic Lash, Chris Abrahams (The Necks), and Julie Tippetts (fka Julie Driscoll).
“Modern Nature’s music has certain threads that run through it,” Cooper says. “Music is increasingly sterile and informed by the grids and convenience of digital recording. Music needs the swing of humans for it to resonate on any level below the surface. I think the most important aspect of that idea is collectivism; the rhythm, melody, timbre, dynamics, all the aspects of music are not the responsibility of one instrument, they are the responsibilities of all the instruments. The vocals are no more important than the bass. That makes the music move in an organically unpredictable way. Like a flock of birds or a school of fish, notes breaking the surface and then disappearing. That’s how I want this music to feel.”
You can check out the gentle, beautiful first single “Murmuration” via its equally gorgeous video by James Sharp & Jamie Hancock.
No Fixed Point in Space:
1. Tonic
2. Murmuration
3. Orange
4. Cascade
5. Sun
6. Tapestry
7. Ensō