When we last checked in with Jack Cooper’s Modern Nature, he and his band were drifting into territory that suggested ambiance over sturdy form on 2023’s No Fixed Point in Space. But with the rhythm section of bassist Jeff Tobias and drummer Jim Wallis augmented by new guitarist and vocalist Tarra Cunningham, the UK band’s latest, The Heat Warps, finds Cooper in the most guitar centric zone he’s explored since the heyday of his old indie rock band Ultimate Painting.
Jorge Ben :: A Tábua de Esmeralda
In the middle of the heaviest years of a military dictatorship, Ben Jorge wanted, in his own words, to “bring peace of mind and tranquility” to Brazilians. He wanted happiness and imagination, visions of utopia, the quickening of the heart. A Tábua de Esmeralda espoused this ideal of absolute joy through its sweet and comic gestures, making reference at the same time to saints and soccer clubs, Medieval magicians and cartoon characters, as if they all belonged to the same semantic realm, a realm that was kept safely protected by artists like Ben as the surface of life was overtaken by political violence.