The lead track arrives as a poignant opening to what the band has described as an album centred on misinformation, control, and the manipulation of bodies and minds. Lead vocalist, Florence Shaw, comments, ‘Hit My Head All Day’ seeks to catch the insidious influence of prevailing disinformation, commenting, “there are powerful people that seek to influence our behaviour… It’s easy to fall under the influence of a sinister stranger who seems like a friend”.

The upcoming album ‘Secret Love’, following their last release in 2022 with ‘Stumpwork’, will showcase 11 new tracks, including the ahead-of-release single. The album itself was recorded over multiple locations, spanning Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio The Loft, to Dublin’s Sonic Studios, and was produced by musician Cate Le Bon in France at Black Box studio. A glimpse at the album’s body of work includes titles like ‘Cruise Ship Designer’, ‘Rocks’, and the intriguingly suggestive ‘Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)’.

The release of the band’s third album marks the purposeful combination of ambition and care. Shaw and the bandmates have travelled to various locations and selected specific collaborating members in order to curate the finished project, working primarily in England with members of ‘Gilla Band’, the likes of Alan Duggan and Daniel Fox, before heading to France to finalise the project with Le Bon in France. The underlying intent throughout the creative process maintains focus on their signature blend of new sound and distinctive lyricism, contributing to their global profile.

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Dry Cleaning, along with this announcement of new music, continues to embark on their 2025 tour. Upcoming global dates in Brooklyn, Madrid, London, and Barcelona are likely to hear the first live performances of ‘Hit My Head All Day’, ahead of ‘Secret Love’ full arrival.

The announcement, however, also marks a clear thematic evolution for Dry Cleaning, as they continue to push their core investment in post-punk instrumentation in a new direction. The band’s earlier works, ‘New Long Leg’ (2021) and ‘Stumpwork’ (2022), have cemented their mastery of the genre, established primarily through Shaw’s observational yet unsettling vocals. With ‘Secret Love’, it appears the band are determined to continue this trajectory into a further commentary of their own sonic expansion.

With the release of “Hit My Head All Day”, alongside the prospects of their album release, Dry Cleaning have set the tone for their future music: internally uneasy, introspective, and with a sharp awareness of a media-saturated world.

With January drawing closer, listeners and critics will have both eyes and ears set on the release date. ‘Secret Love’ on the horizon promises a tension between restraint and unease, with their previewing track ‘Hit My Head All Day’ signalling the grip Dry Cleaning have on the post-punk landscape.

“Anna Calls From The Arctic” is a slow plodding daydream that follows a similar vein to their first album’s track “Leafy”, utilising pensive musings of muted synths and Florence Shaw’s haunting brand of oblique ASMR. Here we see Dry cleaning luring you into hypnotic introspection, and it feels pretty nice.

Check out the “Anna Calls From The Arctic” in the video below:

Discussing the new song, Dry Cleaning said; “The lyrics were partly inspired by phone calls with a friend who was living and working in the Arctic. The song developed from a keyboard, bass and clarinet jam. This then took shape during our pre-recording sessions with John Parish and Joe Jones in Bristol and finalised at Rockfield studios a month later, with some musical inspiration coming from the dramatic scores of John Barry. The song is observational and sensual.”

Recently, Dry Cleaning had a chance to reflect on being hand-picked by Grace Jones herself for her curated edition of Meltdown. Bassist Lewis Maynard stated; “We were at a festival when we got told. Our booking agent was like, ‘Right, you want to sit down for this one’ and told us all together. Some of us felt sick because of it.”

“She’s such a hero,” Nick Buxton (drummer) added. “We love all of those Compass Point records, and especially with Trevor Horn. She’s had such an amazing career.”

Shaw went on to say; “I think the control she has over her own image generally is very inspiring, she’s really the queen of wrestling the narrative about herself, and the choices she makes, back from the press or from other people. She’s amazing at that.

The forthcoming album Stumpwork will see the band team up with producer John Parish, who has worked alongside the likes of Eels and PJ Harvey. Guitarist John Dowse said of Stumpwork; “I think there’s more space in it, When you do the first one, every take you do you’re anxious, like, ‘This has to be the one’. When you do the second [album], you realise it doesn’t have to be the one – you just do your thing and then try something. Sometimes it gets on [the album], sometimes it doesn’t. I guess you just put yourself under a bit less pressure, and that made a big difference.”

The new track sees the band deploy their distinctive nasal guitar tones and the dampened verbose lyricism that fans have come to love. With a style that is growing exceedingly popular among young up-and-comers, Dry Cleaning (for my money) are some of the best to do it. Discussing the chorus of the latest hit, vocalist Florence Shaw explained; “The words in the chorus came about because I was trying to write a song to sing to my own brain: ‘You are always fighting me / You are always stressing me out…'”. With a video created by Peter Millard, the song is typically short and sweet (as is customary with Dry Cleaning’s practice) but packs in a more optimistic aura from the haunting disparity in their former tracks. Have a listen to “Don’t Press Me” down below:

The forthcoming album is produced by John Parish (who has worked with such illustrious names as Aldous Harding, Parquet Courts, The Goon Sax etc.) and will arrive on October the 21^st 2022 via 4AD. You can find the official track listing from the new record beneath:

01 Anna Calls From the Arctic
02 Kwenchy Kups
03 Gary Ashby
04 Driver’s Story
05 Hot Penny Day
06 Stumpwork
07 No Decent Shoes for Rain
08 Don’t Press Me
09 Conservative Hell
10 Liberty Log
11 Icebergs

The album’s artwork mirrors the mundanity in which the band revels, with that slight hint of absurdist tang the striking image was conceived of by a pair of multidisciplinary artists known as Rottingdean Bazaar and photographer Annie Collinge. Stumpwork is available to pre-order at the band’s official site.

The band will be playing at the Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago on the 16^th of July 2022. In her own words, Shaw lifted the lid on the feelings a Dry Cleaning show might illicit; “Some people definitely find it uncomfortable to watch me, that’s something I’ve heard a lot of people say—to me, for some reason. It’s not a persona. My way of getting into it is just to concentrate very hard and to observe the room very carefully and to feel things that usually I am holding back.”

Alongside Dry Cleaning, psychedelic R’n’B sensation Greentea Peng will take the stage this year, as well as other dazzling additions such as cktrl in a one-off show with the London Contemporary Orchestra, DJ Josey Rebel and Alewya (former Little Simz collaborator).

NEW ACTS ANNOUNCED for @GraceJones‘ Meltdown! #MeltdownFest takes over the Southbank Centre site from 10 – 19 June 2022…

Members On-Sale | Thur 10 Mar
General On-Sale | Fri 11 Mar

Announcement Blog: https://t.co/QqEUv1yL9B
All Events: https://t.co/ArTS0PzLWp (1/4) pic.twitter.com/qGD6NCrV7a

— Meltdown Festival (@meltdownfest) March 7, 2022

The Southbank Centre’s Artistic Director Mark Ball said of the latest fixtures; “Alongside the fantastic artists already announced for Grace Jones’ Meltdown, we’re delighted that Grace has now put the finishing touches to her extraordinary lineup. From post-punk to psychedelia to R&B, Meltdown brings a truly eclectic lineup of talent who are both inspired by Grace Jones and are a testament to her musical curiosity and inventiveness. There really is something for everyone, reaffirming the Southbank Centre as an open and inclusive space where people from all backgrounds can come together and enjoy Grace’s incredible curation.”

These acts will come as the cherry on top for attendees of the exciting summer festival, with confirmed artists such as Grace Jones, Peaches, Skunk Anansie, Sky Ferreira, Hot Congotronics (Hot chip + Kasai Allstars) and Honey Dijon shaping up what looks like one hell of a party.

Speaking about her inspiration behind the lineup, Grace Jones stated; “In the face of adversity, there is no pandemic in the world that will stop me from curating the Meltdown festival. It is my mission to present to you many exciting and gifted artists from various sectors of the music world. Come, see and listen; experience this dazzling plethora of talent at the Southbank Centre.”

Experiencing spellbinding live music isn’t all that’s going on for this year’s festival. Free activities such as an opening event from the radio station No Signal, Island Life Reggae Soundclash, fashion events from A Night of A Thousand Graces and Africa Fashion Week London and roller skating in the aptly named “Roll Up To The Bumper Baby”.  A full list of all the fun to be had is available here.

Tickets for this year’s Meltdown Festival will go on sale on Wednesday the 13^th of April 2022 at 10am BST. A chance to get yours can be found here.

Dry Cleaning are presently busying themselves with live performances; having just completed a short tour of the United States, the band will be performing a run of UK shows starting on November 27^th at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena, and ending on December 9^th, also in Nottingham. Following this, the group will embark on a European tour in January, and will return to the UK for another run of shows in February. Come May-time, the band will head out on a recently announced North American tour, with scheduled performances in both Canada and the United States respectively. You can find out more about their upcoming tour dates here.

Earlier this year, Dry Cleaning released their debut album New Long Leg, which has been well-received by fans and critics alike, with NME calling the album “a playful antidote to po-faced post punk”, in reference to the whimsical and occasionally tongue-in-cheek lyricism of frontwoman Florence Shaw. Shaw’s writing seems to be inspired by everyday occurrences; newspaper headlines, trips to Sainsbury’s, and watching television, but she often deals with more pressing, serious subject matter in between these musings on mundanity. In the song “Every Day Carry”, Shaw speaks of “Crappy crazy pizzas” and “banging pasta bake” over an atmospheric guitar motif and a hypnotic, Public Image Ltd. Esque bassline, before delivering the poignant line “I just want to put something positive into the world but it’s hard because I’m so full of poisonous rage” just before the song’s conclusion.

Sonically, the band has been likened more to their precursors than their peers; whilst they inhabit the post-punk genre alongside other UK groups such as Fontaines DC or Shame, their spacey instrumental style evokes a similar feeling to the music of Joy Division and Wire, with the bass guitar taking precedent in many of their songs, whilst an effects-laden guitar part swirls in the background.

New Long Leg was released on the 2^nd of April via the record label 4AD. The album can be listened to on all available streaming services, and you can find physical copies of the album on the band’s website, including two vinyl variants, cassette, and CD.

Dry Cleaning’s North American tour starts this week and they’ve just announced new 2022 dates https://t.co/TG7qR49W56 pic.twitter.com/t1xqVNp4Cq

— BrooklynVegan (@brooklynvegan) November 8, 2021

Dry Cleaning released their debut full-length album New Long Leg in April of this year to extremely warm critical reception, with The Guardian and NME giving the album four stars out of five, and Pitchfork calling it an “outstanding debut” that is “full of surreal images, bizarre obsessions, and sense memories.”

The band’s sound inhabits a similar vein to other UK post-punk outfits such as Fontaines DC and IDLES, and have warranted comparison to precursors such as Joy Division and Wire, with their heavy emphasis on prominent, hypnotic bass riffs and hazy guitars. They are set apart from their contemporaries and predecessors, however, by singer Florence Shaw’s direct, droll vocal delivery and notably idiosyncratic lyrics.

Shaw’s spoken-word, narrative style lends itself to her writing and lyrical topics, which range from poignant and critical in songs like “Unsmart Lady” to cryptic stream of consciousness ramblings, which Shaw has stated come from her own writing exercises; “Sometimes you just can’t be fucked with a lot of topics…You’re like, ‘The only thing I care about right now is baked beans.’ Or, ‘The only thing I care about is Star Trek: The Next Generation. That is my interest, and everything else can fuck off.’ 

Dry Cleaning are currently touring in support of New Long Leg, and are presently performing in the US. Until November 20^th. Following this, the group will be playing a run of UK and European shows, starting on November 27^th at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena. Listed below are the band’s upcoming UK shows for the remainder of the year, as well as US and UK dates for 2022. Tickets can be purchased here.

2021 UK Dates

27/11/2021- Motorpoint Arena Nottingham- Nottingham
30/11- Tramshed- Cardiff
01/12- The Trades Club- Hebden Bridge
02/12- Norwich Arts Centre- Norwich
03/12- Brighton Dome- Brighton

2022 UK Dates

14/02/2022- Arts Club- Liverpool
15/02- The Button Factory- Dublin
16/02- Empire Music Hall- Belfast
18/02- Sumerhall Arts Venue- Edinburgh
19/02- Queen Margaret Union- Glasgow
20/02- Brudenell Social Club- Leeds
22/02- The Mill- Birmingham
23/02- The Marble Factory- Bristol
25/02- Manchester Academy- Manchester
26/02- The Leadmill 2- Sheffield
27/02- Rescue Rooms- Nottingham
01/03- Wedgewood Rooms- Southsea
02/03- Brighton Concorde 2- Brighton
03/03- O2 Forum Kentish Town- London
30/03- O2 Academy Leceister- Leceister
31/03- Cambridge Junction- Cambridge
01/04- O2 Ritz Manchester- Manchester
02/04- Boiler Shop- Newcastle Upon Tyne

2022 US Dates

15/05/2022- Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater- Somerville, MA
17/05- First Unitarian Church- Philadelphia, PA
18/05- Webster Hall- New York City, NY
19/05- Ottobar- Baltimore, MD
20/05- Cat’s Cradle- Carrboro, NC
21/05- Terminal West- Atlanta, GA
23/05- Satellite Bar- Houston, TX
24/05- Club Dada- Dallas, TX
25/05- Hotel Vegas- Austin, TX

Posting on their Instagram page, the band wrote: “Dearest pals, we are most delighted to announce our Spring 2022 UK & Ireland tour! We will be doing a tasty ticket pre-sale on Wednesday for those on our mailing list, and anyone that would like to sign up before then… Tickets go on general sale this Friday! We can’t wait to see you.”

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Dry Cleaning is made up of lead singer Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton. The band formed in 2018, and went on to release their first single Magic of Meghan in 2019. They released two EPs – Sweet Princess and Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks – later that same year.

The band featured in the NME 100 of 2020 list, with the statement: “the band’s unique take on psych-tinged indie rock won them fans pretty quickly… the prospect of a debut album in 2020 is now more mouth-watering than a Viking feast.”
They were also a part of DIY Mag’s Class of 2020: “Success on their own terms, with a sense of humour and some of the weirdest, most wonderful music out there.”

On their upcoming album, the band posted: “Dearest pals, it is with great pride that after what feels like an eternity, we can finally share the news that our debut album ‘New Long Leg’ is set for release on the 2nd of April via the wonderful @4AD!”

Dry Cleaning released their latest single, Strong Feelings, in February 2021. In March they performed on Later… with Jools Holland. The group are also due to play at the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival at the end of this month.

Dry Cleaning released their EP’s Sweet Princess and Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks two years ago in 2019. The forthcoming album New Long Leg was recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic, the members recorded their parts using a Tascam recorder which they passed between car windows and disinfected before each use. The album was finished off with producer PJ Harvey at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

The rock-band toured the US briefly after the release of their latest EPs, but had to return to the UK after the Covid-19 health-crisis rose rapidly, they began writing music straight away while back in London. The new track Strong Feelings as been described by the band as ‘about secretly being in love with someone who doesn’t know it, and Brexit’s disruptive role in romantic relationships’.

Dry Cleaning released the first single off the upcoming debut-album a few months ago, titled Scratchcard Lanyard. The single received critical acclaim for the band, and will feature on the album released in April.

The band was scheduled for UK and Europe tours in 2021, however most of the dates have been cancelled due to the ongoing global pandemic.  The band has yet to reschedule their tour, with the exception of few dates in Iceland and UK in the later summer months.

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New Long Leg Tracklist:

01 Scratchcard Lanyard
02 Unsmart Lady
03 Strong Feelings
04 Leafy
05 Her Hippo
06 New Long Leg
07 John Wick
08 More Big Birds
09 A.L.C
10 Every Day Carry