Review | Modern Woman – Johnny’s Dreamworld

Label: One Little Independent

By Toby Furlong

Contorted, tempting and baring all of its teeth, ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld‘ is the sound of a siren, grabbing you with both hands and plunging you beneath the surface.

London art-rock outfit Modern Woman are fronted by the towering presence of songwriter Sophie Harris. Her vocals can have a luring and enticing effect before the trap is sprung, and you are victim of a banshee’s yell similarly to luminaries PJ Harvey or Siouxsie Sioux. The album is a masterpiece of delicacy and shock and centres Harris as a wildly original voice.

At the album’s gnawing and fractured core there is fascination with the dark underbelly of the everyday and the contradictions of womanhood.

The project begins with the slow rumble of self titled track ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’, with militant drumming from the talented Adam Blackhurst paired with a deceptively grooving bass line courtesy of bassist Juan Brint-Gutiérrez.

Even from the opening track, you get the sense this is a group comfortable with shifting tones and expressive elements. The soaring voice of Harris against jagged guitar creates a perfect conflict, the sound of a fight to the death.

Powering forwards, Modern Woman flirt with quiet danger on ‘Neptune Girl’: “You’d get upset I’d get disciplined”. They sing of New England with poetic influence: “Through there or down in New England soil.” The group comes rooted in a literary influence and it makes the worlds that Harris conjures up all the more intriguing.

The album starts with a sense of immediate urgency, shrieking and howling but the pull in “push and pull” is felt by the softer air of tracks like the bluntly titled ‘Killing a Dog‘ and the intimate ‘Daniel‘.

Harris is able to give the impression of sailing over calm waters but being eerily aware of something lurking below the waves. Speaking of the latter track, Harris said: “I wrote this in North Wales a long time ago. It’s a simple song. I hope it captures some kind of spirit feeling. I was camping near a lake we used to go all the time as a kid when I wrote it”.

‘Blessed Day’ is ‘that’ creature in waiting underneath, a true barn-stormer that suitably ups the ante ten-fold. A truly commanding song that perhaps best sums up what the group are all about, and sure to be a highlight at gigs and festivals throughout the year.

Even when you suspect the group are motoring down one avenue, they chuck in a startling indication of the scope of their invention: ‘Dashboard Mary’ is truly and genuinely earth moving. Fierce, courageous and packed to the limits with feeling and lived experience: “Pushed their breakfast from their plates both faking the afterglow”.

‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is remarkably only a debut album, but with fearless songwriting and unwavering experimentation, we are watching with restless anticipation at where these trailblazing newcomers might be heading next.