Modern Nature – Annual
Bella Union – 5 June 2020
Ghosts inhabit Modern Nature’s new album, Annual. Some are more familiar than others. It’s as if the essence of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis can be viewed sprinkling dream dust on London’s Gizzard Studio back in December. As the shades were coming down on 2019, Jack Cooper, working with saxophonist Jeff Tobias and percussionist Jim Wallis, crafted a requiem to the four seasons.
Words, observations from walks, streams of consciousness began to fill Cooper’s diary at the end of 2018. The writing seemed to change with the seasons. “…as the year progressed from winter to spring, the tone of the diary seemed to change as well… optimism crept in, brightness and then things began to dip as autumn approached… warmth, isolation again and into winter.” When the diary was split into four seasons, it became the template for the four-featured pieces.
Relishing the first breaths of spring, Flourish heralds new beginnings with the saxophone of Jack Tobias colouring the scene, filling in everything but the scents of green coming to back to life. More than merely providing a segue way into summer, Mayday is a bank holiday for guitar, bass, drums and sax with the wordless vocals preparing for the languid weather ahead.
Evoking, “Blue bags of empty cans and scorched grass from out of control barbeques,”
Halo is a hot blast of summer air. Arnulf Linder’s double-bass recalls Danny Thompson’s work with Pentangle. The lasts languorous beats of summer merge into Harvest where Cooper’s vocals serve more as a background for Itasca’s Kayla Cohen. Guitars prepare for the cold blasts to come. Tobias’s sax provides a sense of longing while the angular guitar blasts portend bad weather.
Driven back indoors, while, ”outside the trees are groaning,” Wynter blasts a brace of cold air, driven by guitar (even the harmonics sound cold). Yet as the song begins to fade out, you can hear where Dawn could re-enter creating a new seasonal cycle. As Jack explains, “I guess having to get up and flip the record destroys the illusion, so it’s a rare occasion where listening with the ability to just loop the album into another year is closer to our intention.”
With reference points from Miles Davis and In A Silent Way to Nick Drake and Hazey Jane II, Modern Nature reflects on a myriad of influences inspired and incorporated over the course of twenty-one minutes, distilled to the essence of Annual. Let the draught mingle with your senses and feel the pull of time.
https://modernnature.bandcamp.com/
Photocredit: Benedicte Dacquin