Released only as a deluxe double vinyl box set with a 36-page booklet and second instrumental companion LP titled Island Of Silence, this fascinatingly experimental album by Jack Cooper is inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A beautiful release, refreshingly not available online, but one full of mesmeric oddness, meandering between the tuneful and the abstract, capturing wildlife and weather in musical form. It features Cooper alongside saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Alexander Hawkins, bassist John Edwards and violinist Alison Cotton, as well as long-term collaborators Jeff Tobias and Jim Wallis. Standout moments include the song Ariel, and it’s a interesting follow-up to his comparatively more conventional, but still innovative 2019 debut How To Live and 2020’s mini-album Annual. The booklet features the work of ten other artists, including Booker-nominated poet Robin Robertson, mycologist Merlin Sheldrake (An Entangled Life), illustrator Sophy Hollington, musician Eugene Chadbourne and writer Richard King (The Lark Ascending), who all variously reinterpret, deconstruct or take inspiration from the ten tracks on the record It is filled with ideas. Out on Bella Union.
Modern Nature, with Jack Cooper (centre)
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