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Hello! Hope you’re all keeping well. Please forward this on to any friends who you think might find it interesting. Trying to keep in touch using social media seems like a thing of the best, so I’m going to be spending some time on these newsletters. Feel free to write back as well! Anyway… MODERN NATURE SHOWS We’re all very excited for November to arrive. Our year as a band has been building up to it and it’s just around the corner. Around this time last year, I started writing songs for the next record. All of the Modern Nature albums so far have been written as suites of songs; with a common key, modes and lyrical themes. No Fixed Point In Space felt like the culmination of everything we’d been working towards as a band, so in the back of my head, I was beginning to wonder what the band had left to achieve and where it could go next. Doing that again or creating a song cycle felt obtuse, so when I started writing, it was in a way I hadn’t since I wrote for Ultimate Painting. We didn’t play an enormous amount of shows around the release. I was just getting my head around parenthood and I’d taken on quite a lot of touring with Andrew Savage as well. The Modern Nature shows we did play were fantastic and the highlights for me were when the music moved away from the abstractness of the record and snapped into rhythms. It got me thinking and I found myself looking forward to those moments in the set and wondering where it could go with a another guitarist for us to weave around. And so here we are… we have ten songs and we’re playing two shows to give them some air. The week after, we’re going into the studio and recording them live to 2” inch tape. 9th November - Cambridge - The NCI Centre - TICKETS 10th November - London - Sessions Arts Club - TICKETS Rising my head above the parapet of modesty for a second; If you’re into the band, don’t miss these shows. We’re all very enthusiastic about the direction the music has taken and I think you’re going to be watching a group of people doing something new and you’ll be taking part in the process. ULTIMATE PAINTING Whenever Halloween is on the horizon, I think about the first Ultimate Painting shows that we played in the US around the first album’s release. So this year feels particularly heavy because it’s ten years since those shows and ten years since the album was released (24th October 2014). Recording the first album was one of the best times I’ve ever had making a record. We recorded Ultimate Painting first and that song was the spark that gave the album it’s momentum. I’d sent James a demo of it first because I knew it was good… I had the guitar riff and the vocal melody but the feel was a little off. The session started with us just playing guitar together, slowly refining the feel. Once we’d got it to a place we were both happy with, we recorded it and that was it. First take! Then a rhythm section of me on drums and James on bass. I’d never played drums on a record before and still remember the feeling of holding on for dear life during every song. The vocals were a breeze and we just sat there for the rest of the evening listening to it. This was literally the first time we’d hung out and played music together. To have made something in an afternoon that we were both so in love with felt like magic. It still does. So yeah… ten years ago! AUTUMN LISTENING Dume (NYA Vol. 2) - Neil Young & Crazy Horse (this Powderfinger!!!) Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus - Charles Mingus Live At The Old Quarter - Townes Van Zandt A Distant Shore - Tracey Thorn My Neighbour Tortoro - Joe Hisaishi Come To My Garden - Minnie Riperton White Fence - White Fence (still the best… new records please Tim!) Träd, Gräs och Stenar - Träd, Gräs och Stenar Also… Around the first MN album, I made an Autumn playlist but the sentiment still applies LISTEN HERE
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