Dry Cleaning - Secret Love. LP [Orange Vinyl]

Dry Cleaning - Secret Love. LP [Apricot Vinyl]

South London quartet Dry Cleaning have always felt shrouded in mystery and exploration, like an in joke that the audience isn’t quite fully in on, their witty and dangerously dry blend of post-punk guitar bite, ice cold spoken word story telling with an ear for groove arrived like a breath of fresh air in a genre that can sometimes get a little samey. 

With their third album they’re shaking off any dust from their earlier work and pushing their sound into inventive and bold new places with production help from Welsh art-pop and future folk artist Cate Le Bon. Frontwoman Florence Shaw’s singular off the cuff brand of wordplay still remains intact, with her monotone and deadpan presentation often feeling like you’re being offered the keys to someone's personal diary or ‘note to self’ reminders, which act as the jumping off point for further exploration. Le Bon is in many ways the perfect pairing to take Dry Cleaning out of any of post-punk's traditionally perceived constraints and leap into a bold new world where musically anything goes. Which on the surface might seem like a shift that’s rife with the daunting risk of completely losing themselves but in many ways letting their guard down on “Secret Love” is the best thing they could have done.

Secret Love’s sonic shifts open up Dry Cleaning completely, with more experimentation than ever. Twinkling piano bursts in on ‘My Soul/Half Pint’, unmatched swagger of the conga filled opener and single ‘Hit My Head All Day’ there’s with a new sense of freedom where they seemingly take just as much from the cheeky jabs of Mike Skinner's work on The Streets as they do from guitar greats like Wire. Dry Cleaning in 2026 feels totally reinvigorated, shining with a true new purpose & collectively operating on a higher level than ever before.

For fans of Shame, Sleaford Mods & Viagra Boys