Jarvis Cocker, man about town and urbane urban observer, has a flip excuse for taking to the countryside for Pulp's summer tour. "No venues would have us any more. We're just too wild, so we can only play in the open air now," says Jarvis, upon answering his phone in London with a cursory: "Business line". "No, the reason is more mundane than that. We were asked."

Tomorrow, as part of Pulp's nature trail through the British woodlands on the Forestry Commission's Music In The Forest Tour, the Sheffield band will play Dalby Forest, near Pickering, having first gone wild in the country last Saturday in Robin Hood's back yard, Sherwood Forest.

After dispensing dyspeptic thoughts on living in London - a kind of capital punishment - on 1998's grim and grimy This Is Hardcore album, Jarvis turned his attention from "a record about disillusionment" to matters verdant and environmental on last autumn's follow-up, We Love Life. That shift of focus had been announced on October's double A-side single Sunrise/Trees.

The Forestry Commission must have been paying close attention. "They approached us last year about doing some dates and we thought 'Why not. Yeah, it sounds great'. We reckoned it would be unique," says Jarvis. "We did a few tracks about the environment on We Love Life, especially Trees, so it all seemed to fit together."

Yet being Jarvis, his relationship with nature is not a simple love affair, as he moves from singing about E culture on Sorted For E's And Wizz to tree culture.

The Island Records press release for We Love Life noted: "The album may represent something that could be deemed as a spiritual rebirth but it is by no means happy clappy. At least two animals, one person, four love affairs and a lot of hopes die throughout its 55 minutes, so Pulp have a way to go before they achieve pain-free nirvana".

Jarvis may be more at ease in the country than fellow social commentator Woody Allen, who famously feels adrift out of city bounds, but you sense this tall, skinny man with the gawky spectacles and granny-knit, charity-shop jumpers might prefer to watch nature from a passing car window. After all, album track Birds In Your Garden contains artificial - rather than real - 3-D bird calls generated in the unnatural environment of the Institute of Sound & Vibration at Southampton University, while Jarvis berates "the trees, those useless trees" in the lyrics to Trees before acknowledging they do "produce that air that I am breathing".

"I haven't been for a walk for a while; I don't like to go too far, maybe two or three miles. If you got into double figures, it's too serious," he says, his deadpan tone failing to mask the humour in his voice.

There is, however, an attraction to going down to the woods this June. "We like playing unusual places, and anything that makes a gig different is good: hopefully it will make it interesting for the audience too," says Jarvis. "To me, that's the point of playing a live show, that unpredictable side of it. There's something unique going on, something that cannot be repeated, ever."

Don't expect Jarvis and his band to sit cross-legged by the campfire, carving new acoustic instruments from the abundant trees in Yorkshire's biggest wood. "No, it will be more about urban angst going to the countryside - or that's the stereotype," he says.

Significantly, Pulp will be playing as the light fades, taking to the stage at around 9.30pm for a two-hour show. "I remember doing a festival at Sefton Park in Liverpool, on the other side of the lake, in daylight, and it didn't really work, but this will be darker," says Jarvis, more drawn to the scary version of the forest in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs than a lovely image of a sunlit forest clearing.

No wonder the audience is being asked to bring torches.

"I like the idea of how nature clings to the city, and I've always been fascinated by bits of grass by motorways or underneath flyovers," he says. "A friend of mine in Brixton kept koi carp in a raised toilet and this heron came straight in and ate the fish before you could say Jack Robinson. You wouldn't think there'd be a heron in Brixton, would you, but I love nature encroaching on cities, and the way it adapts when you think somewhere isn't hospitable. I love how nature beats that and finds a way in."

Reflecting on the role of nature in We Love Life's songs, Jarvis says: "One theme of the record is a sense of dislocation with the natural order of things, and so, yeah, nature serves as a kind of voice of your natural self, not your instinctive self, your kind of constructed self," he says.

"The whole idea of the album, if it has got an idea, is the thing of trying to listen to that inner voice rather than respond to all the outside stimulus that might tell you, 'Yes, you should actually be hankering after this particular model of car' or 'you should be going for this particular model of woman'. Or whatever.

"It's trying to see life in terms of a natural thing rather than as a process of consumption, because consumer society starts to make you think of people as other consumable goods, which is really not a good way to think."

After 13 years of London life, would the Sheffield-born Jarvis consider swapping urban smog for open fields at 38?

"Well, I'm getting married in a month's time and I am thinking of moving," he says. "Not to the country but to another country. To France. Paris. I'm marrying a French girl."

Pulp play Dalby Forest tomorrow, expected on stage at around 9.30pm, supported by Richard Hawley, 7.30pm, and British Sea Power, 8.30pm; Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra play on Sunday. Parking is free; gates open at 6.30pm; extensive catering and bar facilities are available. Wear outdoor clothing and bring a torch.

Tickets (£21 for each show) will be available on the night for Pulp, but advance booking is recommended for Jools Holland on the ticket hotline, 01482 814612 (10am to 5pm). Also on sale at Pickering and Scarborough Tourist Information Centres.

Updated: 10:47 Friday, June 21, 2002