It was refreshing to see the words ‘The Carlton Club‘ on the tour show poster for Modern Nature’s most recent outing across the UK. Forget your city centre gigs, you’ll find The Carlton Club tucked away out of sight in the leafy suburbs of Whalley Range, a stone’s throw away from hipster hotspot Chorlton. But unlike Chorlton and its surprising dearth of live music venues, The Carlton Club appears to be the place to go for gig goers in south Manchester, having previously opened its doors to the likes of Damo Suzuki, Steve Davis, A Certain Ratio and countless others. Catering to listeners leaning more toward the alternative side of things, you could say it was the Cafe Oto of the north! It helps too that we live just a short cycle away.
Earlier in the day, having taken new album ‘No Fixed Point In Space‘ for a spin during the dog walk, I’d pondered how Modern Nature – the project of Jack Cooper, formerly of Ultimate Painting – might present themselves in a live setting. Back in April, we had the pleasure of seeing Richard Dawson live, someone whose music is not too dissimilar to that of Cooper and co, and were chuffed up that it was a seated affair (mid-30s and the gig is a sit down? Come on!), so we had fingers and toes crossed that too would be the case on Tuesday evening in Manchester.
Much to our delight, it was seated at the venue, but we weren’t quick enough to grab one, so had to perch near the back. Amazingly, a bloke in front of us decided that the time to noisily eat a bag of crisps was just as the crowd became hushed and the band opened softly softly on ‘Tonic‘, opener from the new album. Not long after, as we managed to blag some seats down the front a few songs in, Cooper calmly called out a table of chatterboxes down the front, signalling out to a bloke – “hey white shirt” – asking him if he wanted to keep doing his talking from on stage. Gentle songs they may be, but Cooper does have a don’t-fuck-with-me look to him on the quiet and fair play, the table pissed off when they were put on the spot.
The stage had a warm, wintry glow to it, set up with wee mushroom-like lamps dotted about the stage, placed on amps, chairs, the stage floor and the keyboard. Did we look online to see whether we could get some for our place afterwards? Yes. There was aesthetically pleasing hair on show too between the upright bass player and Adam Buxton on keys and saxophone (Jeff Tobias), the latter sporting a wealth of great jazz-man hair up top. Along with drummer Jim Wallis, Tobias provided the most lovely backing vocals on ‘Orange‘, as the thick bass strings twanged.
All about restraint, songs grow loud and then drop back, the band showing great strength in not fully letting rip, crafting engaging pieces that reward the keen listener. On their last album, ‘Island Of Noise‘, in fact, there was even a track called ‘Build‘ – building songs up delicately being very much the essence of what Modern Nature is all about. Sitting there watching it all unfold, I couldn’t help but think about the stamina required in constantly grafting without hammering away, playing as if members of the congregation weren’t loudly eating crisps or chatting away from a nearby table… At one point we could literally see the bass players cheeks wobbling as he stuck in real deep, the playing of drummer Wallis on the other hand so soft you could just about hear it at times.
Towards the end of one, Cooper turned a knob up on his amp and got down to a squat as the tempo and noise levels rose, business picking up, Tobias double timing it with saxophone and keys at the same time, as the band built to a wash of sound from on stage. Soon there’d be some real visual exchanges going on between Tobias and Cooper (now stood up), as they sang the chorus, the drummer playing a tumble down the stairs beat as the upright bass was lit up. The eventual closing of the book of sheet music from Cooper signalled an end to proceedings – a nice visual, fitting with vibe of Modern Nature – and in good time too, allowing for time to pick up a record and return to the bar, before making the swift cycle home.
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