Dry Cleaning

Dry Cleaning pits vigorous instrumental drive against Florence Shaw’s understated spoken-word observations on the extraordinary alongside everyday routines. The South London outfit first displayed its taut, swaggering approach on EPs including the 2018 release Sweet Princess, which references Meghan Markle, yet their 2021 debut album New Long Leg already incorporated dream pop and psychedelia. The group broadened its palette on the 2022 album Stumpwork, shaped by ’90s indie rock, and the 2023 Swampy EP, while continuing to anchor every excursion with perceptive commentary and dry, absurdist humor.

Guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton, each seasoned participants in the southeast London punk and hardcore community who now treated music as an avocation, began performing instrumental post-punk in 2017 modeled on the Feelies, the Clean, and the B-52’s. Seeking a singer, Dowse contacted his former Royal College of Art classmate Shaw, an illustrator and visiting university lecturer raised in a musical household with a particular regard for the Specials, the Smiths, and Sea Power. After agreeing to join early in 2018, Shaw supplied lyrics assembled from her own artwork, fragments of overheard talk, newspapers, and advertising, lending an additional dimension to the sound.

The completed lineup tracked the debut EP Sweet Princess—including the single “Magic of Meghan,” which merges Shaw’s reflections on a breakup with references to Meghan Markle—in a single day and issued it independently later that year. Live performances commenced that May with a first appearance at Dalston’s Shacklewell Arms. A second self-released EP, Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks, titled after the band’s rehearsal space, followed in October 2019. Around the same period the It’s OK label assembled the two EPs into a compilation that reached number 36 on the U.K. Indie chart. Steady touring encompassed U.S. shows immediately prior to the early-2020 onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic; by year’s end Dry Cleaning had joined the 4AD roster and released the single “Scratchcard Lanyard.” That track reappeared on the April 2021 album New Long Leg, recorded with producer John Parish at Rockfield Studio in Wales. The set climbed to number four on the U.K. Albums chart and drew broad critical praise. Following this breakthrough, the band supplied its reading of Grimes’ “Oblivion” to the 4AD benefit cover collection Bills & Aches & Blues issued in 2021. Additional 2021 output comprised the July single “Bug Eggs/Tony Speaks!” and the November limited-edition EP Tascam Tapes, containing four-track renditions of New Long Leg material.

For the follow-up LP the musicians again collaborated with Parish, working at Rockfield Studios and in Bristol, England. They devoted greater attention to October 2022’s Stumpwork, which extended their range toward ’90s indie rock while drawing lyrical impetus from U.K. politics, the pleasures of video games, and contact with faraway friends. The album attained number 11 in the U.K. and number 13 on the U.S. Heatseekers chart. Early in 2023 the art directors of Stumpwork received the Grammy for Best Recording Package at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. That March Dry Cleaning issued the Swampy EP, gathering previously unheard songs and demos from the Stumpwork sessions together with reinterpretations of album tracks by Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul and Nourished by Time. Also in March 2023, 4AD re-released Sweet Princess/Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks.