Modern Studies

Scottish quartet Modern Studies blend pastoral chamber pop and folk through a gently experimental lens. Their sound draws on lush harmonies, jazz-tinged rhythms, and subtle electronics, yielding elaborate albums such as 2018’s Welcome Strangers and 2022’s We Are There.

The group coalesced in 2015 when Glaswegian musician Emily Scott began shaping songs on an antique pedal harmonium slated for donation to friend Pete Harvey’s studio. Those pieces soon anchored a fresh collaboration with Harvey, Joe Smillie, and Rob St. John. The multi-instrumentalists gathered at Harvey’s Pumpkinfield studio in rural Perthshire, draping Scott’s reflective melodies in cello, analog synths, double bass, drums, and assorted other textures to produce their debut LP, Swell to Great. Issued by Scottish imprint Song, By Toad in September 2016, the record earned widespread acclaim and placed on MOJO Magazine’s Top 20 year-end list. Modern Studies also appeared on the 2015 Shirley Inspired tribute compilation honoring U.K. folk legend Shirley Collins. Fire Records reissued Swell to Great worldwide in November 2016.

During 2017 the quartet commenced work on their follow-up, returning to Pumpkinfield and securing funding to engage a chamber orchestra and a village hall for recording. Welcome Strangers arrived in 2018. Artist and sound designer Tommy Perman subsequently fashioned an entirely electronic reinterpretation titled Emergent Slow Arcs, released in 2019. In May 2020 Modern Studies issued their third album, The Weight of the Sun, incorporating additional electronic elements alongside a Krautrock influence. Two years later their fourth LP, We Are There, expanded the sonic range further, encompassing lush string-laden Baroque pop, dark jazzy rhythms, and twilit harmonies.