London, UK · art-folk · alternative

Modern Woman

2 festivals played ↓

Uncanny English art-folk — pastoral songs with teeth, violin scrape and strange narratives from London's experimental fringe.

Modern Woman are a band from London who emerged from the city's experimental and post-punk-adjacent circuit in the early 2020s. The group began as a solo outlet for songwriter Sophie Harris, who first aired the songs at spoken word nights before building them out with a full band.

Their music sits between folk song and something more unsettled, pairing modal melodies and narrative lyrics with violin, angular guitar and arrangements that build slowly before breaking apart. The band cite experimental art rock, post-punk and sixties folk as reference points alongside straighter song tradition.

Vocals are often delivered somewhere between speech and singing, and the songs tend to favour tension and gradual escalation over conventional verse-chorus shapes. The group's reputation has been built largely on live performance and a small run of releases rather than on radio play.

Modern Woman released their debut album, Johnny's Dreamworld, this year through One Little Independent Records. It works over the rawer side of femininity and keeps returning to the pull between loud and quiet, scrappy and polished.

Read more

art-folkalternative