Dry Cleaning

Simon Reynolds mentioned he'd played Dry Cleaning's New Long Leg more than any other recent release, figured I would check it out, am now in that giddy flush of love for anew band and a new sound. Hadn't heard them mentioned here yet. The pleasure buttons nudged by Wet Leg and LoneLady are jammed on full by these guys (and I see there was a mention on the Wet Leg thread after all).
anyway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PuqlOTyJt0

i think there was a fair bit of discussion in the current-ish crop of post-punk bands thread

they're decent but i think squid ended up mining somewhat similar territory much more successfully to my ears this year, just without the deadpan thing

I found Squid interesting but ultimately too fussy - may do that with these guys too but it’s much more electrifying at present

I get Lithics and Dry Cleaning confused sometimes. (Love em both)

They're very close to the only rock act I can imagine voting for in a 2021 poll. (Admittedly, I haven't searched particularly vigorously for other contenders.) Some days "Viking Hair", from a couple of years ago, is clearly the best thing I've ever heard lol.

I feared early on that I was merely desperate for a Life Without Buildings substitute but they're pretty durable and the comparison now feels kinda regrettable.

"Scratchcard Lanyard" was first released, ahead of the album, in November 2020, but it seems to have grown in popularity over the past few months. I've been obsessed with it over the holiday period, and I nommed it for the EOY tracks poll.

I like the album.

“Her Hippo” made my year-end playlist, but the couple of times I listened to the whole album I wasn’t sure I needed more than the one song. Maybe I’ll try again.

The album is pretty good, a grower. I found the preceding two EPs more immediately appealing especially “Sweet Princess”.

I’m smiling constantly and people constantly step on me

the last thing I looked at in this hand mirror was a human arsehole

My brain started mashing up "Scratchcard Lanyard" and Sleater-Kinney's "Get Up" the other day and it was a lightbulb moment of why Dry Cleaning and Lithics are so appealing to me.

new song & video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVc8lYIaUM

Nice! Good for 3 consecutive plays, even. (Brevity obviously helps on that front.)

file under 'fantastic verses, godawful chorus', what the hell is that banking-advert whistle doing here

i mean thankfully 75% of the song is fantastic but that was A Decision wasn't it

so good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkYbEPd2qTY

Saw them live on Saturday, incredible show.

another new one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNwr7wuRHY

New one is possibly their all time best

Or at least feels like it could be

Really liking the McGeoch influence on Tom

"Anna" is good, I think, after a few listens. It's apparently the LP opener, which seems a bold move, unless perhaps it's quite representative of nu-DC.

I like how their visuals keep oscillating between "seemingly near-random footage" and "discernible production budget" lol.

got my tickets for the Melbourne show in December WOOOOO

also milo z thanks for the Lithics mentions, I've had a blast getting into their catalogue

"Gary Ashby" is seemingly a tortoise, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdvrSu38pWY

just got tickets for their february nyc show

New single/video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyfYFznhyJI

No great surprises but a nice Reynolds piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/14/arts/music/dry-cleaning-stumpwork.html

Wearing a long black lace skirt and a sparkly gold camisole, she curled her fingers around the mic stand like the stem of a wineglass

yes

loving "stumpwork" so far. it's only a slight shift from "new long leg" (she sings a very tiny bit! there's more acoustic guitar) but that's OK with me. i would turn the vocals down a hair in the mix if i could

This is fantastic isn't it? A clear step up

The vocals are absurdly high in the mix. It actually does my head in.

I’m not feeling this, the separation of the vocals makes them feel too disconnected and it’s missing the counterpoint between high energy music and lackadaisical vocal word. Feels kind of plodding overall.

I'm still trying to assimilate the early-released tracks into the context of the album (super irritating strategy to me) but I sure wouldn't describe Shaw's vocals as lackadaisical. I think the mix is right to foreground her charisma over the less unique sounds of the band, and it adds power to have her insinuating in your ear rather than blending with the band. I'm a little concerned the live show might favour the latter.

Before this thread it really hadn't occurred to me that the vocals were particularly foregrounded. At least not problematically so.

I need to put in some more effort with the 5+ minute tracks but I may end up preferring this to New Long Leg. Feels more varied and I'm totally digging the wonky sax and synth shadings on a bunch of tracks, not least the final three.

droopy flute solo comes here

I’ve come to realise Shaw has the same acerbic, insightful, imitative qualities I love in Laurie Anderson, simultaneous horrified fascination and baffled affection for the culture.

I’ve come to realise Shaw has the same acerbic, insightful, imitative qualities I love in Laurie Anderson, simultaneous horrified fascination and baffled affection for the culture.

Feel like this one is a “grower”. After listening to “Stumpwork” on Friday I immediately listened to “Sweet Princess” again and marveled how great they were straight out of the gate.

The cover grosses me out and somehow makes me want to listen to this less

haha yeah no fucking way would i buy the vinyl

Haha right? Imagine going back and telling Vaughn Oliver that’s what the label would release for a cover in the future.

this is one of his sleeves for Scheer
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Scheer_-_Infliction.jpg
and Pod featured him nude dancing with a belt of dead eels, he would have been totally down with the Stumpwork sleeve.
There’s a limited mirrorboard edition with a silver cover if it helps?

It was a joke based on how 4ad used to be known for a very specific house style, from which this Dry Cleaning cover diverges wildly, but thanks for the “well, actually” lesson anyway.

ok, missed it

the mix doesn't bother me on headphones

i do see the laurie anderson thing, though i feel like anderson's lyrics are more cohesive/thematic than shaw's, which often feel like a string of non sequiters (not a criticism)

It reminds me of the week I spent using the Conet Project CDs as commuting listening in the train, a sense of tuning into the random clutter of unspoken thoughts around us.

Also, jon v c, I frequently feel like the stupidest person in the thread for my banal posts, I’m sorry that one came across as condescending but usually I’m explaining things to myself.

Feels very weird that this is isn't being widely spoken of in the terms of something quite brilliant tbh. Liberty Log alone has single-handedly rescued Anglo post-rock from a decade of torpor

It's more quiet, more unassuming, more humble, and yet contains vastly more galaxies than any number of these Squid types combined. It isn't just the frontwoman, rightly foregrounded. This band's secret weapon is its music. And so the Life Without Buildings comparisons make more sense this time

Listen to that broken, gasping, intermittent, perplexed groove that swells beneath Liberty Log and tell me it isn't marvellous

Feels very weird that this is isn't being widely spoken of in the terms of something quite brilliant tbh. Liberty Log alone has single-handedly rescued Anglo post-rock from a decade of torpor

― imago, Monday, October 24, 2022 8:38 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like this band and album, and i know you're just going to do you which is absolutely fine, but i think it should be registered (for probably the millionth time idk) that this kind of baroque meritocratic praise which also just kind of makes things up that aren't even real might actually hinder the band dry cleaning from becoming more widely appreciated afaict.

ppl weren't kidding about how high the vocals are mixed

If anything the lyrics were sometimes hard to discern on the last one for those of us with, ah, attention problems, but they're well foregrounded here.

I'm hoping to hear four of these songs on a KEXP show presented by Cheryl Waters.

i like this way more than the first one, musically it's so much more interesting

yeah, i'm enjoying this album a lot though, unlike LJ, I am finding the back half less compelling.

I knew their guitarist was cool. Did I know he was THIS cool though?

https://worldofechomusic.com/blogs/inner-world/inner-world-027-dry-cleaning

i love the instrumentation and especially the guitar on "No Decent Shoes Fora Rain" so much

i like this way more than the first one, musically it's so much more interesting

this is otm, but also why it's disappointing that the vocals are so high in the mix, keeps pulling me back from the really interesting stuff going on behind her.

they are so loud you could pull them back 25% and they'd still be the loudest thing in the mix by far, i know what you're saying about how it keeps you at arm's length in some way

Not hearing the imbalance, maybe a hair more prominent than NLL but in no way detrimental to the music for me. Parish absolutely knows what he’s doing mixing small bands with charismatic vocals, and the band have talked enthusiastically about his role in bringing ideas to fruition. They’re an excellent band but a genuine 50/50 with Shaw in terms of appeal.

I'm not hearing the imbalance, and, yeah, I like the sax and synth touches on 'Icebergs' and 'Anna Calls From The Arctic.'

I love the bickering in “Kwenchy Kups” too

the vocal mix i think is what sets this record apart. this band did not click for me really at all until this album

Obviously what one thinks about the mix or how successful one finds it as an intentional choice is one thing, but I can't see how you wouldn't notice that Florence's vocals are much louder in the mix than anything else. I've listened to it on headphones via my iPhone rip, the original CD in my car and the original CD on my home setup and it feels immediately obvious to me.

I feel like she's definitely floating 'above' the music on the opener, but that's been around for months and I've revisited it infrequently since the rest of the LP dropped. That track doesn't feel particularly representative and it just didn't occur to me elsewhere, presumably precisely because it didn't detract from the experience. I mean, it's not as though there is a definitively 'correct' way of mixing. (Or is there lol?)

People IRL have made exactly the same observation so I'm prepared to believe it's palpably... atypical.

I've ended up listening to it again now dammit. Updated opinion: definitely better than NLL.

I listen to this band to hear inventive guitar music roiling around Shaw's quietly intense thought process, the mix delivers. I don't need them to sound like other bands.

Totes.

Also: one of my odder hobbies is watching how bands' sets evolve over time, despite rarely managing to attend stuff. https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/dry-cleaning/2022/pryzm-kingston-upon-thames-england-5bbe9398.html

Whoops! Premature submission. I was going to note that their sets tend to be fairly static and that they introduced the bulk of Stumpwork only in the last couple of weeks. BUT it came at the expense of "Viking Hair", leaving only "Meghan" from 2019. This is a major tragedy lol.

rats, I like "Viking Hair"

fwiw, my annoyance with the mix doesn't mean I don't like this, I really do. It's even better than the debut! I just wish the vocals didn't kinda overwhelm everything else at times.

I like the album, more than the first as I said, I just cannot comprehend listening to this and not thinking damn these vocals are really loud

Clearly they read this site. "Viking Hair" was back on Tuesday night. :) (Though it was a slightly longer set overall: "Leafy" and "Unsmart Lady" returned too.) Yes, I know, this IS a pathological level of attention to such details.

inverse ...and justice for all bass mixing of the vocal aside, i'm really love this more every time i listen

Yes me too.

sometimes the guitars give me vini reilly vibes which is always welcome

yes!

I also agree with the above comments about this reminds a lot of Life Without Buildings but not enough to be a carbon copy. This band and especially this album are similar to LWB but scratch a different itch.

two bonus tracks from the new album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiGKGonhdQ8

well "swampy" should satisfy the "vocals too loud" camp

sorry, I meant "sombre two" there!

Coming here in January on the world tour - I bailed on Stereolab and Boy Harsher this summer because I wasn't comfortable in a big crowd yet but maybe I'll be braver in a couple of months.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6l1GYjOt-A

Yeah DC payed a show in April in Baltimore and I just wasn’t ready yet to be in a rock club situation, but January should be okay even if I’m the only person masking.

seeing them TONIGHT!

they fucking provided blank

oh and Viking Hair was present and correct, sounded awesome

:) Regretting not finding some way to attend one of THREE Vic shows. That vid 5 posts up is just rubbing it in!

well this is as much as I saw of them at the Corner, or at least my arm raised over the idiot head of the guy whose main reason for attending was to hug his girlfriend and chat to his mates
https://i.imgur.com/LuxjSns.jpg

i enjoyed them last night in Syd - they're such an interesting live proposition! the lack of regular rock show dynamics took a bit of getting used to (obv not a surprise knowing their sound, but it was still striking in a performance setting) - it felt like the set started pretty sedate and got more vigorous - definitely glad I went, although perhaps didn't provide any revelations beyond the records

on the sloping edge of a vase of flowers
on the front, Chinese landscape
on the sides, figures in a Dutch landscape
it's Europe

rather neutered performance of probably my least favourite track on Stumpwork:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUW4TmzWYfk

On tour this month in the US. Going to see them in Washington.

that is a kinda meh live run on tonight show but maybe fallon was boring them

catching them at the start of february in nyc.

well they were lovely sounding live, but the laconic anti-charisma thing was more than a bit stifling after a half an hour of standing in place and playing.
sunn o))) had a more active stage presence. So did The Archies.

they're certainly trying! the recreations of the songs are very much there and accurate! But there's no funny business, it's all serious business.

Yeah there’s not a lot of stürm und drang in the sprechtgesang

I was lucky enough to stand near the abstract spot that Flo stares at to achieve dramatic distance, so it was oddly engaging.

It's interesting how they then contrast that with surprisingly giggly interviews/in-studio sessions!

I am totally nicking "sturm und drang und sprechgesang" as old-mind scan-a-like substitute for "sex and drugs and rock'n'roll". Thanks matttkkkk, I promise I'll try to give credit.

i have a feeling that if they were the sorts to mug for the cameras they'd be a different and less good band

xp I am honoured to be quoted

Florence did have a funny little speech about how she thought the White House had a dome before they visited.

Live, it was very pleasurable to hear the band play loud, after being somewhat buried in the mix on the current album. They sound great!

i have a feeling that if they were the sorts to mug for the cameras they'd be a different and less good band

― imago,

otm -- she does mug, though! When I saw them at Pitchfork last summer, Shaw widened her eyes, looked histrionically left to right, etc.

she thought the White House had a dome before they visited.

future Walsh lyric

subtle mugging is good!

it gave us batman

The guitarist moved a lot at the Minneapolis show and made power rock fists at the audience after songs when people applauded his playing. Shaw made a comment about being unprofessional for an encore, bringing out a music stand with an iPad to read a lyric from, and seemed rather bashful when an audience member commented on her beautiful hair. Two audience members, one earnestly and the other repeating with not-quite irony, said "you guys are really good" at different points in the show. Just before departing the stage, Shaw went back to the mic and said "see you next time," as if some special bond had been achieved. A good time was had by all! (Actually I never saw the bassist or drummer smile, but maybe they just don't.)

I was lucky enough to stand near the abstract spot that Flo stares at to achieve dramatic distance, so it was oddly engaging.

distillation music

They were great in Austin last week, she was very animated during the show! We thought the opening guy Nourished by Time was pretty amazing, I'd definitely go see him again.

Liberty Log is haunting me

It’s a weird premise for a show, but I like it

Liberty Log is some world-class tension and release, many many post-rock bands should listen and learn

gary ashbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
have you seen
garyyyyyyyyyyyyy
family tortoise

it was a bad surprise

"gary ashbyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
have you seen
garyyyyyyyyyyyyy
family tortoise"

it seems that hey aren't only ripping off the fall sound but also the lyrical content. i don't see any especial abour dc, one more from that current post punk lot

on the vocals, the main problem i find isn't that half spoken style but how mediocre her technique is in comparison with mes, lou reed or captain beefheart

i see

they're all dead though

chastened to be enjoying mediocre music

but glad to finally see some critical rigour on this internet board

Do not hear The Fall one little bit in them.

There is a current London group whose female singer I'd give generous and enthusiastic MES comparisons to, thing is it's Audiobooks not Dry Cleaning

Doesn't matter if they sound like them or not, the poster in question compares everything to the Fall and finds everything wanting.

"the poster in question compares everything to the Fall"

just like most of the dry cleaning reviews (not that i need them)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVo9CeuS9lY

I could go for an entire Florence + the producer guy from Sleaford Mods album

i love the concept but there's not enough florence. though it is funny how it's kind of like a guest verse on a rap song.

she should have had a guest verse at the state of the union

let's hope an american shooting not happening though

#trenchantsocialcommentary

Hot Penny Day (Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul Remix)

omg go OFF

She is a bit under-deployed on that, isn't she? I do like her faces in the video, though.

I like papal hotwife's suggestion.

Was there any build up to them playing various South American dates or is that a recognised part of a tour itinerary for a band these days. Really had no idea bands toured there until the recording of their Argentinan date turned up this morning.
I am seeing that Siouxsie played there in teh mid 80s but really wasn't aware of it as a destination for tours.
I guess there is going to be an audience for a popular band and the network of people talking about them will be worldwide since they are quite good. But logistics of affording to play and travel around the continent must be somewhat high, not just like jumping in a transit and going to Dover for the ferry to tie in with an existing tour network. or is it?

Apparently they played Mar Del plata and Buenos Aires, Chile and have 2 dates in Brazil.

I think I've heard of stadium gigs and festivals but not a smaller single date per town tour . Don't think I'd even been aware of US bands touring the various countries much either.

So there's audio on Dime for teh set in Mar del plata and a separate one for teh soundcheck and i saw that a video had been upped to youtube but the account that upped it had been closed.

I'm also aware that there is a Soul jazz compi of some post-punk bands from Brazil and may have seen posters for hardcore/metal bands from South America playing Galway but I think that would be part of a longer European tour and that would be more dates in a much smaller amount of space.
Just striking me that there are almost always going to be alternative scenes to the mainstream. But I just wasn't really aware of things in South America beyond the Tropicalia and post that individual recordings from brazil and taht Soul Jazz cd which I have somewhere cos it turned up in a sale somewhere.
If it is a more widespread thing now for bands from teh UK to be playing South American tours before they're stadium sized it is news to me.

Probably easier to get visas in South America than it is in the US!

bands play here all the time. it's 2020. get a grip.

^ play there. xpost

wasn't what the person who upped the recording was saying re UK bands at least

new album Secret Love coming in January! produced by Cate Le Bon

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPMS2QQkSEN/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

hell yeah

saw them play on saturday, they played several new songs (i recognize the title "my soul/half pint" for sure). they sounded like dry cleaning, but maybe with a touch more melodic singing. their guitarist is so sick

He really, really is. He's the main guitar player in the past decade or so where I've felt the pull to sit down and figure out and learn all his lines. So much of it is simple, but there's something really thoughtful and sort of painterly about how he makes the songs move. And it stays fantastic even when they lean in directions you'd think might sideline it.

I'm curious to see how people will react to that on the new stuff, maybe especially with the single that's out now, "Hit My Head All Day." When I first heard this I spent like 15 seconds or whatever thinking uh-oh, I'm not sure this is territory I'm going to love for them — then the guitar swung in and it was like ... sorry I doubted you, you've got this figured out just right.

he's very riffy but avoids a lot of riff cliches. or they're more like postpunk riff cliches instead of classic rock riff cliches

I remember one early interview where he says he's just ripping off the Wipers at all times, which sort of tracks, especially on the EPs, but ... there's also a level where he almost reminds me of Johnny Marr? As in, he's often playing simple changes, but he always finds ways through them that sound totally unique and evocative and unexpected. I guess the setup of the band helps with that: equally good players on bass and drums, and a lot of the songs seem to start from bass lines, and there aren't a ton of vocal melodies to work around, so Dowse ends up totally free to float and paint above everything in interesting ways. I've already seen one other guitarist go hard on copying that delay-pedal thing he used to do, stomping one on for dramatic tails on specific notes; probably won't be the last pulling some inspiration from here

his mix that someone shared before in thread shows a lot of variety for sure

https://worldofechomusic.com/blogs/inner-world/inner-world-027-dry-cleaning

lol I was gonna share that, his phc background adds so much to the soundworld

given how much better stumpwork was than the debut i'm incredibly excited for this

actually I DID share it in the jump upthread lol

The ‘What’s in my bag’ they did a couple of years ago was fun and a little surprising. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8slReHFb40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7V6zQFU6w ok this song is <3

sade/balearic/gil scott heron "bmovie" + geordie walker/keith levene vibes on guitar + florence doing her thing as always

Didn’t immediately hit me but I have faith in the band

That video is my first time hearing this band, and I really liked it. Don't know why I avoided them for so long. No particular reason, I just missed them somehow.

The production on the vocal is really interesting to me. Is it always way out front like that on their records? It has a cool and really unusual effect.

And otm re: the Levene / Georgie vibes on the guitar. Boy you weren't kidding!

OK, I listened to a few more tracks at random and answered my own question about the vocals. I think I really need to catch up on this band's discography, everything I've heard so far is pretty great

You’re in for a treat, Paul

Good stuff indeed. Still bummed I've never seen them live! I was on the verge of doing so in November 2021, even though I was still leery of going to shows, then literally the day before I suffered my upper arm fracture and that was me out. I know they've been back since but that didn't work out so hopefully this time.

Saw them last time around January ‘24. Nourished by Time opened, a fantastic concert.

Oh damn, THAT'S a one-two I would have loved. Alas!

I think I said this on a different thread, but the Nourished by Time remix of "Gary Ashby" where he sings an action-packed rewrite of the lyrics is just amazing. I'd 100% run out to buy a whole album of "Nourished by Time writes alternate vocal lines for Dry Cleaning songs."

That "faith in the band" thing has hit me with each album. First one dropped the peppy immediacy of the EPs' highlights to get a little more stretched-out and heavy, which I questioned until I sank into it. "Stumpwork" got more spindly and atmospheric and pulled back the drums, which I questioned until it became the one I reach for first. Over the past decade there have been a lot of bands I like in their indie-rock early days, but then they all grow and change by converging on the exact same choices as one another, this boring tilt toward a kind of obvious half-pop they're seldom very good at. Dry Cleaning stand out for changing in ways that do more of what's interesting about them, instead of less — you know, "Stumpwork" feels more like something only they would make than the first EP does.

Yeah that was my first time ever hearing NBT!

I saw them at Pitchfork Festival '22 and they were wonderful.

I've already seen one other guitarist go hard on copying that delay-pedal thing he used to do, stomping one on for dramatic tails on specific notes; probably won't be the last pulling some inspiration from here

This made me check out the music, ty. Yeah, he's sick, it's an approach more like you would use in mixing or dub, but now that you mention it isn't very common for guitarists, is it? It's usually "here's my sound for this section of the tune"? Idk I am not a guitarist.

Guitar sound often reminds me of early Christian Death. Love it

Xxxp to nabisco—Stumpwork really insinuated itself into my brain until I found myself mumbling lyrics from “Liberty Log” to myself.

“Weird premise, but I like it”

it isn't very common for guitarists, is it?

This is that "painterly" quality I had in mind, where you maybe start thinking less about parts and more about sounds you're daubing in particular spots? That specific trick definitely isn't, like, unprecedented, but yeah, you don't generally see guitarists doing it — it's slightly tricky and occasionally risky (note may sound comical if the effect doesn't click on) — so it feels like using it repeatedly as a song element says something about how you're imagining the guitar's role. (There's probably more of it lately, but I'm guessing that has to do with the huge number of pedals out there and the number of them that can be controlled with expression pedals, which is easier. I'm pretty sure that in the early Dry Cleaning stuff Dowse was actually stomping a delay, not sweeping an expression pedal.)