London-based Modern Woman began life as the songwriting project of Sophie Harris, a literature graduate who started playing the songs solo at spoken word nights she ran. An introduction through a mutual friend led her to meeting David Denyer, an Anglo-German-Armenian composer by trade whose interests include Merzbow records and building his own instruments and pedals. The two started playing together with Denyer playing an array of homemade violins, synths, effects and percussion - including a battered wooden table with a metal colander nailed into it and jagged remnants of cymbals that take a pummelling throughout the band’s live show.
After a period of comings and goings of different line ups the band was completed by the driving rhythm section of bassist plus occasional saxophonist Juan Brint Gutiérrez and drummer Adam Blackhurst.
The band’s music, still based around Harris’ songwriting, explores a diverse range of sounds drawing from their melting pot of influences from post-punk and 60s folk music to free-jazz and noise. Lyrical nods to myth and folklore sit amongst songs that range from poetic monologues, stripped back folk songs to the ferociously experimental.
Playing their first show in the later half of 2019 the band quickly built a word of mouth following around their incendiary live performances gaining early fans in influential peers like IDLES, Squid and black midi, before lockdown cruelly stopped them in their tracks.
out on May 03, 2023
via End of the Road Records
out on July 13, 2022
via End of the Road Records
out on September 17, 2021
via End of the Road Records
out on August 10, 2021
via End of the Road Records
out on June 08, 2021
via End of the Road Records