As ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’, the debut album by London art-rockers Modern Woman, goes to show, the slow evolution of an idea often brings the finest results. The fourpiece first cut through on End Of The Road Records with the raw gothic, Bad Seeds-ish ‘Dogs Fighting In My Dream’ EP and the muscular confessional ‘Ford’. That was 2021 to ’22, then came another spregesgang thumper ‘Achtung’ a year later and now signed up with One Little Independent we have their fully fledged, exemplary opening statement.
The core of Modern Woman music has always been the songs of Sophie Harris but they self- identity as a tight four piece unit which has been together since those early recordings. First to join Harris was composer and violinist David Denyer, bassist / saxophonist Juan Brint-Gutiérrez then arrived and soon his drummer mate Adam Blackhurst completed the band. This close-knit familiarity is exactly the platform that the imaginative sweep of Modern Woman’s music demands.
The title track shows their ambition from its marching snare, crashing chord announcement. Propelled onwards by pummelling post punk muscularity Harris’s droll, sardonic spoken sneer takes control. “ You can be my God, If you wanted to/ Pink haired Karaoke in Tokyo or New Jersey/ If you wanted to” she purrs as a surreal cos-playing starter. So far so Dry-Cleaning you think but with a flick Johnny’s Dreamworld has become drifting and fragile, hints of violin and Harris’s folk-pure vocal pleading “Let me into your dreamworld”. From punchy aggression to swelling melodic appeals, the song carousels before building to guitar squalling halt.
The unravelling Dashboard Mary feels equally expansive as it stretches from folksy harmonium through chamber pop lushness and onto a Big Music sky punching sway out. Sophie Harris’s wordsmithery shines here with a lyrical, yarn- spinning twang. “She was 27 and the man was older still/ taught there at her college/book on Wordsworth’s Daffodils” goes her road trip runaways’ tale. David Denyer’s soundtrack composer CV adds real depth to the song and the band as a whole bring an authenticity to all the dramatics. This is not Meatloaf /Hollywood histrionics or sham-rock dressing up, there’s grit and honest sentiment within Modern Woman’s songs.
Harris says her writing is motivated by a need “to explore the rawer side of femininity that is often hidden; girlhood relationships and the complexities of female fixation and obsession.” She does this through narratives which drift between the imagined and the remembered, dark everyday stories which unravel power, loss and loves. Plus on ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ her vocal delivery has the capacity to bring characters closer with a Bush-esque resonance.
The deftly cranked-up jangle swinger Neptune Girl finds her voice morphing from a raw snarl to ballad bright soprano with the occasional, leftfield Ari Up whoop. Harris’s most strident wail perforates the exuberant pumping rock of Blessed Day alongside some slashing hardcore guitaring and riff blasting sax from Brint-Gutiérrez. Then on the beautifully melancholic Daniel, a revisit to a tune from their first EP, her vocal reaches its natural emotional peak. As the acoustic guitar tingles and Denyer’s violin swoons, she taps deep into a tragedy. “I saw Daniel swimming from the rocks and I thought then that I could raise the dead” Harris reminisces with the delicacy of Josephine Foster.
What’s made clear throughout ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is that the album is distinctively a band recording. Denyer, Blackhurst and Brint-Gutiérrez are complicit in tightening the album’s grip on the listener. The four-piece can make the slinky, Polly Jean referencing Offerings and the avant pop BCNR-ish Killing A Dog sound very much their own. They can even delve into prog-rock theatrics on Fork/Heart without letting this twisting dark-folk thriller sound too clever.
Sophie Harris has said the driver for Modern Woman’s music is “the idea of conflicting things, of the tender/harsh, loud/quiet and scrappy/polished”. ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ busily juggles these tensions and in doing so begins to define the band’s singular approach. Ironically then, it’s possibly the most restrained song The Garden that lingers longest. A stripped back, hymnal ballad which drips sombre sorrow like a Cohen confessional, you feel raw nerves are getting touched here.
Modern Woman have certainly planted their creative marker in the shifting sands of indie band land with ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’. Producer Joel Burton (Naima Bock, Katy J Pearson, Vanishing Twin) plays a part here, ensuring the band keep their live edge as the ambition of their music grows. From this debut you get the feeling that Harris and crew are nimble enough to swerve around the ‘next big thing’ hype and really mark out their own trajectory.
Get your copy of ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld‘ by Modern Woman from your local record store or direct from One Little Independent HERE
