If It's Too Loud...

We like to think we do a pretty good job of bringing you new music, but every so often we do drop the ball. After seeing Modern Nature play The Rockwell Tuesday night, I can safely say we massively missed out on their excellent 2025 album The Heat Warps. Coming all the way from Cambridge, UK, Modern Nature took the tiny stage of The Rockwell in front of a decent crowd and quite simply blew everyone in attendance away. Usually when we say that, we are speaking about volume, or aggression, or noise. Instead, Modern Nature play a fairly quiet and mellow blend of indie rock. It was along the lines of Sonic Youth or Slint... just much more chill. Of curse, chill and mellow don't have to mean boring or not intense. Modern Nature's songs are rather intense despite how laid back their playing is. If you've never heard their single "Pharoh," do yourself a favor and check it out. It's an absolute masterpiece. Modern Nature were at their best when Jack Cooper and Tara Cu...

Photo by James Sharp If you've been wondering what Jack Cooper (formerly of Ultimate Painting) was going to do next, then you're in luck. Modern Nature is his latest project, and it's quite different from his previous one. Cooper has this to say about his new band: "The band is so new, it's hard to say who's in and who isn't. At the moment it's myself and Will Young (Beak) with Aaron Neveu on drums (Woods/Herbcraft) Rupert Gillett on cello and then Jeff Tobias on saxophone (Sunwatchers). The band started as a vehicle for a wider project that Will and I spent the year putting together so it feels very exciting to be an actual band now. Every song we record or musician we gain, another door seems to open on a route that's worth pursuing.” Their first single, "Supernature," is a nearly twelve minute long song that dabbles in folk and free jazz equally. It has a chilled out  (but strangely intense)   vibe throughout, and sort of plods al...