What I'm Listening To - Dry Cleaning
/I’m listening to Dry Cleaning’s debut, New Long Leg. A lot. I’m reminded of some of my favourite bands from the 70a and 80s - Wire and XTC and Talking Heads and Robert Fripp and early REM, and also of influences that surprise me, like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. It’s an odd record, so laconic and casual-seeming one minute and so deeply cutting the next. Both minimalist and maximalist.
At the centre of the band is Florence Shaw, a London artist and reluctant vocalist. The story is, she agreed to front the band only when everyone else said she wouldn’t actually have to sing.
Hers is a flat and at the same time weirdly expressive delivery. I laugh out loud every time. She tells stories that hang on invisible, make-no-sense plot lines. Like random diary entries, or notes towards a stand-up bit in an empty club miles off the main drag. The thing is, all these one liners are intriguingly curated and the resulting collages accumulate a real and often moving heft. Both confessional and damning, you feel that whenever Shaw performs she's likely the smartest person in the room.
I listen to the record with a furrowed brow, I’m sure I do. The same way I look at a challenging photograph or painting. Trying and mostly failing to figure out how the band pulls it all together, and pulls it off. Dry Cleaning probably don’t care. “I’d like to run way with you on a plane,” she says, “but don’t bring those loafers.”
Here’s the lead single, Scratchcard Lanyard.