Modern Woman | Johnny’s Dreamworld

Modern Woman: Johnny’s Dreamworld

(One Little Independent Records)

CD | LP | DL | Stream

Out 1 May 2026

PRE-ORDER at Piccadilly Records

Album Of The Week!

London art-rock outfit, Modern Woman, finally fulfil their mission to conflict noise and melody through the release of their debut album Johnny’s Dreamworld. It’s a collection of songs of truly immense stature in the way that it shapes a unique blend of theatrical indie folk, post punk art-rock and semi-rock opera into a whole new dynamic avant-garde art form with spectacularly vibrant results.

From the very first moment that Modern Woman stepped onto the stage at Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds in August 2023 and started to perform their set as support for Ezra Furman I knew this was another turning point in my musical journey through life as their eclectic fusion of sound immediately gripped my attention and stirred my soul. I was immediately reminded of some of the words spoken by Johnny Marr in his lecture at the University of Salford in 2008, namely “nothing of any value has ever been created inside the British or American music industry. It always came from the outside – from outsiders created in the real world. These people, out of necessity, rejection, frustration and talent, and with vision, built their own ark and sailed it alongside and ahead of the music industry.”

Not only did this view seem totally vindicated from what I heard that night, but it was further cemented once I heard their debut EP Dogs Fighting In My Dream which was released in 2021 and proved beyond all doubt that this was definitely music with value and substance that was being created by ‘outsiders’ in the real world. And with the band’s very clear penchant for discordant rhythms, angular guitars, staccato drum patterns and avant-garde sonic imagery, together with primary vocalist and lyricist Sophie Harris’ beautifully refined and elegantly operatic vocal style conveying her intelligent lyricism, I knew I had come across something very new, particularly interesting and extremely exciting.

Starting out as an intimate songwriting project by Sophie, the idea of the band grew once she met violinist and composer David Denyer, who brought a background in experimental composition and textural sound work. With the further addition of Juan Brint-Gutiérrez on bass and saxophone, Adam Blackhurst on drums, and producer Joel Barton who also features on guitars and piano, the group forged a style that values the contrasting harsh edges of folk lyricism and noise that collides with melody. This aligns with Sophie’s own visionary theme “of conflicting things, of the tender/harsh, loud/quiet and scrappy/polished.” And after a series of singles and numerous live performances over the intervening period, we now have the release of Modern Woman’s debut album, Johnny’s Dreamworld, which arrives in all its glory to deliver this vision.

Title track Johnny’s Dreamworld opens the album with a kaleidoscopic rumble of bass and drums which eventually forge a path through syncopated rhythms and shifting grooves which ebb and flow seemingly at random amidst a surreal flurry of Sophie’s spoken word narratives, layered strings and raging guitars. In a sense it’s the perfect annunciation of the very heart of the album which explores the strange poetry within the ordinary, not to mention Sophie’s fractured thought patterns drawing on fragments of film, memory and imagination. As Sophie explains, “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.” And no doubt in my mind that this album does just that.

Neptune Girl then rises up and takes us right into one of those unexplored spaces as it draws on the band’s melting pot of influences with a collage of shifting tones and dynamic rhythms colliding in perfect dis-harmony as the narrative delves into the world of morality through the lens of childhood. With propulsive drums and bass and fractured guitar lines all feeding into a heavy danceable beat, whilst Sophie once again stretches her expansive vocal register to its limits, it’s a song which is a perfect illustration of the band’s penchant for an explosive approach to sound and melody, especially as the intensity increases mid-song.

Offerings is one of those songs that transports me back to my very first live encounter with Modern Woman with its repetitive shift between the distant percussive rumble and the sudden barrage of explosive guitar. An early favourite from their debut EP, Sophie explains the influence of producer Joel Burton in relation to the rerecording of the song for the album as follows, “We wanted to up the ante on this tune. Joel really brought this to fruition, you can hear the shift in dynamics and the tension he created through his style of production.”

Killing A Dog meanwhile is a reincarnation of an older song which portrays a much more laid-back vibe infused with ethereal textures. It’s another song of contrasts between the urban and natural worlds which is delicate, dark and tense all in equal measures, with the uneasy feel throughout being harnessed by the saxophone of Nathan Pigott and cello of Kirke Gross. Daniel then reveals an even starker and more intimate side of Sophie’s talents which delivers one of the quieter and more personal moments on the album. Dominated by Sophie’s beautiful, raw and somewhat ethereal vocals, it’s a song accompanied only by her acoustic guitar and David Denyer’s haunting violin, all of which coalesces into a poignant and highly sensitive tale.

Fork/Heart is a song rooted in the domesticity of memory, and its unsettling staccato rhythms, off-kilter guitar runs and semi-spoken narrative certainly add unusual flavours and an unnerving quality to the charm and mystique of its groove. Closing with the line, “With the kind of bodies hidden in that place, I can feel a heart in the home,” Sophie explains its background as follows, “I think some locations, places, houses have this weird energy running through them, as if they’re alive. This song is about how collected things (objects or memories) inside a home build this aliveness, and can even feel threatening when they’re not nice things.” Blessed Day is very much built around the hard driving rhythm created by David’s thrusting bass line and Adam’s pounding drums, whilst Juan’s saxophone shifts dramatically between opposite ends of the sonic spectrum. Not surprising that the narrative is focused on delving “underneath the suburban front, to reveal something disturbing.”

Dashboard Mary is initially driven along by keyboard accompaniment in a subdued and sultry manner, with Sophie’s glorious vocals taking centre stage. But then the drums kick in and start to build a degree of intensity before the song finally erupts into a magnificent raging swirl of psychedelic haze before reaching its triumphant climax. As a song which was created to capture the comedown following a feeling of escape, its highly discordant nature achieves this in fine style. Closing song The Garden is a slow and meditative reflection inspired by Joan of Arc hearing voices in her garden. The blending of Sophie’s haunting vocals and David’s pump organ create spectral, almost surreal atmospherics which feel like they propel the song into a different dimension. A fitting end to a truly extraordinary album.

Through Johnny’s Dreamworld, Modern Woman have created a debut album of truly immense stature in the way that it shapes a unique blend of theatrical indie folk, post punk art-rock and semi-rock opera into a whole new dynamic avant-garde art form. It is a collection of songs which draws on a vibrant and eclectic melting pot of influences and transforms them into an intoxicating and propulsive force, shifting seamlessly from the delicate to the completely untamed, all framed within Sophie Harris’s beautifully refined, expressive and elegantly operatic vocal style. Alongside the band’s penchant for discordant rhythms, angular guitars, and staccato drum patterns, there is no doubt that the bands mission to conflict noise and melody has been a triumphant success resulting in an album which is already a strong contender for one of my albums of the year.

Modern Woman have confirmed some live dates in the UK and Europe, including the album launch which will be held at The Lexington in London and a UK tour in October. The dates are as follows:

May
06 – The Lexington, London (Album Launch)
07 – FOCUS Wales, Wrexham
16 – Leeds – In Colour Festival
23 – Wanderlust Festival, Heartbreakers, Southampton

July
04 – Vida Festival, Catalonia (Spain)

August
01 – Wilderness Festival, Oxfordshire
21 – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, UK

September
04 – End of the Road Festival, Dorset, UK

October
27 – Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
28 – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
29 – Now Wave Pub, Manchester

November
25 – ICA, London

You can buy tickets for the live dates here.

You can pre-order the album here.

You can find Modern Woman on Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp and their website.

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All words by Ian Corbridge. You can find more of his writing at his author profile here.