Dry Cleaning

Dry Cleaning

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About Dry Cleaning

Genre
Rock
Secret Love is the finest expression yet of the profound friendships that created Dry Cleaning. Here, frontperson Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard take their place in rock’s avant garde, catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins. Producer Cate Le Bon likens the impression of listening to walking through a city; these 11 songs might also arrive like distinct images in a gallery.
 
 
The record started life in Peckham rehearsal spaces, the south London four-piece writing, playing and responding to each other in the room, the instrumentalists egging each other on as Florence drew from her collection of postcards and found materials: in Dry Cleaning, music and lyrics form an inseparable, generative whole. Then they bundled their demos in a suitcase and took them to musical friends with strong palettes to test and twist them. Secret Love evolved through affirming sessions at Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio the Loft and explosive ones with Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan and Daniel Fox in Dublin, taking advantage of the sonic particulars of each space, and finally with Cate in the Loire Valley. Some acts would fear being subsumed by these other musical iconoclasts. Dry Cleaning wanted to push themselves harder than they ever had before. “We’re very confident about our identity,” says Florence. “It doesn’t seem to be possible to break it down.”
 
The opposite: Secret Love is a singular, career-defining statement, coming after debut New Long Leg (2021) and Stumpwork (2022). They push the cheeky no wave of compulsively catchy lead single Hit My Head All Day somewhere totally unexpected, powered by pistons of breathy synths and magnificent cresting arcs of guitar. Cruise Ship Designer is a classic Dry Cleaning pop song in the vein of Gary Ashby, sung from the perspective of a nautical entrepreneur who has deluded himself that his work serves society. There is unprecedented darkness in Blood, a lurch between forlorn chill and desperate alarm that confronts the normalisation of witnessing atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine online, and the British government’s callous, capitalist attitude to war. Amid these disingenuous actors, Florence turns over questions of trust, and volunteers more of herself than ever before, a profound gesture of connection. She finds Secret Love “quite sad and dark,” she says, but feels good about the honesty of that reflection. “I really love confessional things,” she says. “It always makes me feel calm when people are sharing hidden stuff. I hate when you get a sense that there’s stuff people aren’t saying.”
 
The more introspective songs search for coherence between interior and exterior: the panicked longing for connection in spite of the certainty that people are repulsed by you in the Pentangle-influenced Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit; the warring frustration, lust and foolishness in the bristling crucible of Rocks, Dry Cleaning’s most teeth-gritting rager. My Soul / Half Pint is the goofiest expression of this tension, exploring Florence’s love of tidying – organising to a satisfying internal logic – but hatred of cleaning, a tedious social good. The album affirms the power of coherence in love. The celestial Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy) preserves an unspoken crush for eternity. The Cute Things is a daydreamy swirl about the beauty of self-sacrifice in true relationships; the barely adorned pulse of I Need You uses the characteristically off-kilter image of being fired by Donald Trump on The Apprentice as an analogue to the beautifully deranged pressure of pinning all your hopes on one partner: “The finger coming down: you.”
 
It’s no mistake that Secret Love ends on a similarly optimistic note to Stumpwork. Icebergs, the closing track to their second album, advised: “Stay interested in the world around you / Keep the curiosity of a child if you can.” Here, the song Joy offers “don’t give up on being sweet” in the face of troubling mansophere cults. It can be hard not to feel overwhelmed by the lurid grotesques beaming dogma from your FYP page and wonder if you shouldn’t give up and join them. But Secret Love is a reminder to find the people you can go floppy with; a transmission of the band’s love and trust in one another that listeners might share in, too.

Dry Cleaning

Dry Cleaning is a South London post-punk quartet built around vocalist Florence Shaw's deadpan spoken word delivery and the band's instinct for pairing her precisely observed, oblique lyrics with charged, guitar-driven arrangements.1 Signed to independent label 4AD, the group has earned a Grammy Award and placed three studio albums in the UK top 15 since their 2021 debut.3,5

Score your Dry Cleaning tickets on AXS and catch one of indie rock's most distinctive live acts.

Dry Cleaning's Background

Dry Cleaning formed in South London in 2017 when guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton began writing together after years of crossing paths in the city's music scene.1

The trio recruited Florence Shaw, a visual artist and university lecturer with no prior band experience, after Dowse heard her voice over their demos and convinced her to join a rehearsal.2 Shaw, initially reluctant, performed over found texts and personal writings in place of conventional singing, giving the band an immediately distinct identity.2 After releasing two EPs in 2018 and 2019, Dry Cleaning signed to 4AD in 2020 and recorded their debut album during the COVID-19 pandemic.2

Dry Cleaning's Awards

Dry Cleaning has earned recognition across independent music and the broader industry, with their Grammy win marking a milestone for a band that built its reputation on unconventional creative choices.

  • Grammy Award - Best Recording Package (2024): Dry Cleaning won this award at the 66th annual Grammy ceremony for the artwork of Stumpwork, beating out four other nominees.3
  • NME 100 - Essential New Artists (2020): The band was named among NME's 100 Essential New Artists of 2020, an early marker of the critical attention they would carry into their debut album cycle.4
  • UK Albums Chart - Top Five Debut (2021): New Long Leg entered the UK Albums Chart at number 4, a notable commercial achievement for an independent label debut.5

Dry Cleaning's Biggest Hits

Dry Cleaning has released three studio albums, each charting in the UK top 15 and adding new dimensions to the post-punk sound established on their early EPs.5

  • New Long Leg (2021): Their debut album peaked at number 4 on the UK Albums Chart, with lead single Scratchcard Lanyard becoming one of the band's most recognized tracks.5
  • Stumpwork (2022): The follow-up reached number 11 on the UK Albums Chart and later won the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for its unconventional cover artwork.3,5
  • Secret Love (2026): Dry Cleaning's third studio album entered the UK Albums Chart at number 12, extending the band's run of top 15 placements across their full-length catalog.5

See Dry Cleaning Live

Dry Cleaning's live shows are precise and compact, built around Shaw's unhurried stage presence and the band's tightly wound arrangements. Sets run roughly 55 minutes, with Shaw's restrained delivery creating an unusual counterpoint to the churning rhythms behind her.6

Grab your Dry Cleaning tickets on AXS and experience one of indie rock's most singular live acts.

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Sources
  1. Dry Cleaning: the London group uniting murky post-punk, Meghan Markle and really weird YouTube comments - NME
  2. The Everyday Poetry of Dry Cleaning - Rolling Stone
  3. Dry Cleaning's 'Stumpwork' artwork wins Grammy award - NME
  4. NME 100 Essential Artists for 2020 - NME
  5. Dry Cleaning - Official Charts
  6. Live Review: Dry Cleaning and Dreamdecay at Neptune Theatre - The Stranger