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Modern Woman, the London art-rock outfit fronted by primary songwriter Sophie Harris, are set to release their anticipated debut album ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ on May 1st via their new label One Little Independent Records.
New single, the title track and album opener, ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’, is driven by Juan Brint-Gutiérrez’s serpentine bassline and Adam Blackhurst’s shifting grooves, providing a rhythmic backbone that anchors its surreal energy. Written collectively by the band, its layered strings and spoken-word passages conjure a world built from fragments of film, memory, and imagination. Harris reflects, “I spend a lot of time in my head, and I like thinking of my mind and other people’s minds like a location sometimes, a dreamworld – I like that reading and particularly music can take you into spaces in those places you haven’t explored before.”
The album 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.
Following the release of previous singles ‘Dashboard Mary’, ‘Neptune Girl’ and ‘Daniel’, all of which have garnered support from the likes of BBC 6 Music, NME, The Guardian, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, DIY, Clash Magazine, Loud and Quiet, The Line Of Best Fit, and more, Modern Woman share ‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ ahead of the record’s release in May. The single comes alongside a newly announced run of UK headline dates this autumn, following a series of spring shows and festival appearances including Vida, Wilderness, Green Man and End of the Road, with their Lexington show in London selling out ahead of a newly announced date at the ICA.
Modern Woman’s sound emerged from years of creative refinement. The band coalesced when Harris met violinist and composer David Denyer, who brought a background in experimental composition and textural sound work. Joined by Brint-Gutiérrez on bass and saxophone and Blackhurst on drums, the group forged a style that values the contrasting harsh edges of folk lyricism and noise that collides with melody. Working with producer Joel Burton (Naima Bock, Katy J Pearson, Vanishing Twin), they found a live immediacy that channels the raw intensity of their performances into a sound that is both rich and unpredictable.
‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ is a tender but confrontational collage of shifting tones and perspectives, of dream logic, fantasy, and lived experiences, guided by Harris’s jagged guitar style and singular voice; expressive, incantatory, and alive with curiosity.
Since their formation in London, Modern Woman have built a reputation for performances that blur the boundary between poetry and noise, commanding stages at End of the Road, Latitude, The Great Escape, and Green Man. Harris, a literature graduate, writes with a novelist’s precision and a performer’s urgency, while Denyer, Brint-Gutiérrez, and Blackhurst bring the intensity of modern composition and punk backgrounds to the table. This year they signed to One Little Independent Records, the home of Björk, Crass, Laura Misch, Penelope Trappes, and more.
‘Johnny’s Dreamworld’ cements Modern Woman as one of the UK’s most distinctive new voices, a band intelligently and purposefully exploring the relationship between beauty and brutality.
