When I joined a Zoom call with Modern Woman’s frontwoman, Sophie Harris, I was keen to get inside the mind behind one of London’s most intriguing emerging bands. From the ideas shaping their sound and image to the behind-the-scenes of their upcoming UK tour, our conversation offered a closer look at the world of Modern Woman.
Modern Woman first came onto my radar through Green Man Festival, where the band had the chance to perform. “We really like Green Man,” Harris told me. “We did get to play on the Walled Garden stage once, which was a bit of a dream really.”
When it comes to gigs, Harris has little time for the idea that an audience should stand still and judge people for bumping into each other. For her, movement is part of what makes live music special, clearly frustrated that some concertgoers police how others experience a show. “People should allow people to move,” she said.
The band’s music is difficult to pin down to a single influence, something Harris puts down to the different tastes each member brings to the group, creating what she describes as a “melting pot of influences”. That variety is part of what makes Modern Woman so compelling. While their music sounds very heavy, it simultaneously has a softness to it lyrically.
Harris’s own background in folk music finds its way into the band’s sound, adding another layer to their otherwise hard-to-categorise approach. I admit that Harris’s vocals and songwriting reminded me of Big Thief, with a shared similarity in the folk-indie genre, to which she replies: “Oh, that is such a compliment.” For Harris, those different influences are not something the band needs to iron out. Instead, they help create a sound that feels expansive. To me, this unpredictability keeps Modern Woman exciting to watch.
Harris’s relationship with music stretches back long before Modern Woman. She told me she learnt to sing by copying Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, absorbing their vocal styles as she found her own voice. While she is careful to distinguish these early influences from the sound of Modern Woman itself, she believes the way she learnt to sing is something she will always carry with her.
“A lot of the time, it’s about being comfortable to go with a mood,” Harris explained. Rather than committing to one sound or feeling, Modern Woman allow their music to move where it needs to, embracing the shifts between tenderness and intensity.
Perhaps that is what makes the band so interesting: they do not seem concerned with fitting neatly into a category. Their music draws on different backgrounds and tastes, but it is the willingness to let those influences coexist that gives it character.
And that freedom extends to the people listening, too. Whether on record or in a crowd, there is no single right way to experience music. For Harris, the important thing is allowing space for those differences, letting a song take you wherever it needs to go, and giving others the freedom to do the same.
Words by Ellie Evans
