Modern Woman On Debut Album, Origins, And Balancing Delicacy With Shock

Toby Furlong

I’m a writer hailing from the distant land of Norfolk. With a deep love for vinyl, currently standing at over 100 in my collection. When it comes to picking a favourite artist, it will always be the sounds of Trish Keenan and Broadcast.

As we count down to the release of Modern Woman’s debut album ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld,’ we chat to frontwoman Sophie Harris

London art-rock supremes Modern Woman have been catching the eye for a few years now. With a string of successful singles, their journey has brought them within a month of the release of their debut album ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld,’ out on 1st May 2026 via One Little Independent Records.

‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ represents the culmination of Modern Woman’s journey from Harris’s early, intimate songwriting project into a full-bodied band capable of folding post-punk, avant-garde, and folk traditions into a live force of dynamic originality.

At its heart, the record explores the strange poetry buried within the ordinary. Harris’s lyrics, steeped in literary detail and filmic atmosphere, draw from a fascination with the dark underbelly of the everyday and the contradictions of womanhood.

As ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is an introduction to Modern Woman, I’m curious if you could tell us the story of how you came together as a group?

Sophie: It was a longish process! Some of the songs on this record started out as my own solo work and my boyfriend at the time told me to get playing it live and said you’ll meet people that way. It’s hard to meet the right people in the music world. I met a lot of people through these poetry events I would put on and it came together through friends of friends, mutual people coming together.

I looked for a violinist and that was David, so we started playing live as us two which was cute. Then, through that, I met Juan, who’s the bassist, who actually suggested his flatmate who was a drummer that might be interested, and that was Adam our current drummer. It was a lot of comings and goings and it settled into the lineup on the record now.

It’s interesting you briefly mentioned a poetry background; from listening to the record I definitely hear a sense of poetry tradition in the lyrics. Is this something you are tuned into?

I used to read a lot of poetry through my English degree, in which I specialised in poetry. I’ve always been interested in modern poetry, seeing what people are making. But I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and tried to replicate a poem. I think I unconsciously absorbed elements of poetry and I would like to think that comes across in the songs.

I think sometimes you have to be careful, If I’m reading too much poetry especially modern writing It can make me overwrite, so I am very conscious of that.

So it is almost like little bits here and there, but the end result is entirely Modern Woman?

That is what we are aiming for! It is never easy though. This record took around two years to record, around all of our day jobs, so the struggle for free time was there. The writing on this record is all the writing from when we first started creating and playing music together as a group. I think the long process is reflected here and I actually think that is a good thing.

You have the periods of time where I was really interested in folk-horror writing and other times where I was interested in something completely different. I would hope there is a ‘Modern Woman’ sound that we sort of hone in, through that organic progression.

Two years is definitely a long period of time in the creative process, did many of these songs start out sounding completely different to how we hear them now?

Not so much with the songs we left on the album. But I do have a habit of getting fixated on certain songs, and I think our producer is similar to me in that sense. Eventually we had a conversation where we both agreed to let go of these songs and re-recorded a couple of them. They would take on different shapes and sometimes it didn’t always work and they would get scrapped.

By the time the record was completed, the ones we chose we recorded live and they captured the energy in the room.

Something that immediately stood out to me on the album was the real contrast between loud and quiet elements, there’s a real push and pull factor. It made me curious about your own influences and background in singing? As you shift between a post-punk yell and more of a theatrical vocal style.

Like I touched on before, I struggle to know what was absorbed and what sort of consciously stuck with me. I love music so much, and that ranges from when I was first learning guitar outside of that classic guitar style, learning that soloing rock guitar style and then I got interested in Gilla Band – especially the way they use their delay pedals. That turned out to be very influential to me.

Then it became anything from Cat Power, I really love Scout Niblett who I think is massively underrated. As a band, we all really love Tom Waits and Slint.

My grandad actually used to play in a skiffle band and was very into country music and introduced me to people like John Prine and Bob Dylan – these storytelling musicians. It rubbed off because the first music I started singing and playing was folk and country.

How about the influences of the wider band?

Our violinist David is very into metal music and he also scores for horror films so I think that blends into the Modern Woman stuff, especially with the string arrangements. Juan loves jazz and then Adam loves math rock. So it’s very much an amalgamation of stuff. Very hard to hone down on specifics.

With the album set to release in the next few weeks, is there a particular track that stands out to you as an absolute favourite?

I really love ‘Dashboard Mary’. It just felt like quite an easy song to write, coming together quite easily. Then when Joel our producer came in and added the flutes onto the chorus, it tied it all together. I was quite nervous about singing a song with a strong sense of melody; I’d always been into trying to make music that was a bit weird or off-kilter like the EP was and when we just let ourselves do it, I was really happy with the outcome of that song.

If I asked you to sum up the story of this album or to uncover its themes, how would you describe it best?

I think you summed it up best earlier on, we worked really hard on that push and pull feeling. Working really hard in the studio to make sure the vocal came across in that way, the delicacy and the loudness. As a band I think they have an incredible way of creating tension, loud and quiet, polished and grating. I’d call it the balance between being delicate and being able to shock.

As a last little question, I read that you have had some festival experiences down at End Of The Road, Latitude and The Great Escape. On that note, we are curious whether you have any festival life hacks for our CLUNK readers?

I am 100 percent a festival fan! Some bands hate them because musicians see them as competition between themselves but I think they are great for small and up-and-coming bands. As for life hacks… I’m awful at festivals, I make a list of the bands in my mind that I want to see, but I’m not one of those people to come up with a schedule. I think being relaxed is a good approach, especially somewhere like Glastonbury, where you have to run across the whole site to see bands, it can be very stress.

Go with the flow, see what you feel like seeing in the moment and enjoy being there rather than sticking to a schedule. Enjoy just pondering around.

‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is out 1 May 2026 via One Little Independent

Listen to the singles here: