DRY CLEANING

By the time an outfit comes around to releasing their third album, it marks a moment that resides somewhere between novelty and success. Never too far from one another, it is only time and longevity that allow an act to straddle the continual guideline so as to put more space between the two. For the British four-piece, who burst onto the scene with their debut album, New Long Leg, it was an album that announced their arrival but also highlighted the short leap from workaday jobs to musical creativites. A feeling that takes considerable stamina and a degree of peer recognition to reach a level of certainty in one’s output.    

With all members (vocalist Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, and drummer Nick Buxton) in Dry Cleaning coming to the band later in life, each having various other professions under their belts, those experiences were never far from living memory. A hardship that in some ways prepared a path of determination and capability for the band, and a solid exterior which acted as a safeguard against possible early flameout, as Shaw reiterates, “I’d say we know what it’s like to do normal jobs. So, the novelty of being in a band for a living hasn’t worn off. And probably won’t. Although I’d also say it’s the hardest I’ve ever worked. It’s not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure. I think flameout for bands is always close at hand; it’s such a precarious business in every way.” A cautious approach with one hand on the wheel and the other checking the rear-view mirror. Yet, patience, advice, and persistence prevailed. Some of that advice came from none other than Shaw’s father and mother, as she explains, “My Dad has given me a lot. He said the most important thing to encourage is your inner world. To have a little world thriving in there, and that’s what you share with people. He told me that was the important thing that people who made great work had. My Mum always encouraged me to collect things without necessarily knowing what they were for yet. Those two pieces of advice are kind of the same thing said in two different ways.”

That duality echoed by Shaw when describing some of the steepest learning curves she and the band have had to face in starting and sustaining the creative fires which fuel the band’s ambitions as she lists – “Being perceived! That’s an ongoing difficulty for me. Financial precariousness is part and parcel of being in a band too. Our creative fires are pretty stoked all the time, no problems there.” So, with experience earned from New Long Leg and the success of the often-feared sophomore album, Stumpwork, a confidence and apparent cohesiveness within the band bore the fruit that a highly anticipated follow-up record demands.

The dynamism between Shaw, Dowse, Maynard, and Buxton is evident, but how that actually functions and helped the foursome sharpen their focus as they embarked on their third album, Secret Love came down to the firm but gentle hand of Dowse, as Shaw elaborates, “Tom in particular is a very productive person; he’s always making things. He pushes us to write; I would say a big dose of the dynamism comes from him. I think we all share the same favourite part of being in a band, though, and that’s the writing stage. It’s very exciting. The more experience we gain, the easier to find focus and not get in our own way.” Further to that, and regarding the ways they wanted to push the sonic boundaries on Secret Love, Shaw adds, Nick wrote much more on his keyboards straight away; putting a drum machine on and writing keyboard parts as first ideas for songs. That marked a change in the character of our writing. But we’re really just looking to double down on what we do naturally, the wistfulness, the grooves and hooks, the humour and the nihilistic and uncomfortable parts.” Yet the most immediate and identifiable aspect of their sound could be said to come from Shaw herself and her indelible singing.

Shaw’s signature vocal delivery is one that is instantly recognisable and has certainly come to mark Dry Cleaning’s style. However, initially, it was less so a deliberate choice and more so one of comfort. As Shaw has gone on and evolved as an artist and musician, understanding the ways she honoured her original approach, and the ways she has tried to shift it into another gear, is eloquently put by Shaw when she says, “I try to be myself and express myself from my gut, and then pay attention to which bits of that sound interesting. I think taking credit for too much is a bit perverse, although it is tempting to want to pretend something that goes down well was all part of your master plan. We all know deep down that really good things happen by accident most of the time. That’s the thing I’m wanting to honour, and I try as hard as I can to be observant and think critically about my own writing and vocals. The way I do vocals, if it has evolved, it’s been purely out of my own curiosity, in the same way that the way you dress or do your makeup changes over time. Sometimes in a leap, as an emotional rebellion against what you were doing before, and sometimes so gradually that you don’t notice it yourself.”

The inseparable aspect of her singing style is of course, what she sings about. The lyricism of Dry Cleaning has always been another of their quintessential qualities. The poetic, almost haiku wording that belies far deeper and broader subject matter, is something that the band produces with ease. In conjuring the written content, Shaw details the methodology and approach toward the ways she constructs lyrics and fits them in and around the music. “I work really hard at it, and mull things over for a long time, with the goal, most of the time, of trying to write something simple. And the delivery of the words forms a great deal of their meaning. When we start writing, I respond to the music that the guys play. I find space in what they’re doing and choose lyrics that to my mind, complete what I’m hearing. I write at odd times, and keep a rolling collection of lines or pairs of words, or short paragraphs of writing that I write anytime, whenever they occur to me. And I use those in our practice space as raw material to try out, using gut instinct for what sounds good. I make a lot of recordings on my phone of me doing that, and keep what sounds good, repeating the process until I’ve got a rough template for a whole song that I like. I take a lot of time away from songs so I have fresh ears, but when I do make edits, I try to make decisions quickly to try to avoid writing things that sound overwrought. But I’ll return to decisions weeks later just to check they still feel good. I do that many times over the course of about a year usually. And I’ll usually still be writing right up to ten or fifteen minutes before I record. I feel like I’ve gone mad by the end, and when I listen back to recordings, I can hear that. It sounds like me, but possessed.”

Yet, as ongoing record production unfolds, so to does the gravitas of a band. This is perfectly accentuated by the collaborative assistance given by the highly regarded Cate Le Bon. Produced by the incredible Le Bon, Shaw mentions the fingerprints she left on the record that bear her touch. ‘Cate was the custodian of the emotional qualities of the songs. As soon as I saw how much she cared about protecting those, I felt very happy, and I didn’t feel I had to fret about it as I usually would. She introduced the idea of making a synth sound from my voice, which she played on three or four songs on the record. She worked very hard to create space for different parts to shine at different moments, asked for parts to be rethought, almost always with the intention of creating room and to boil parts down to their strengths. She’s as much a part of the record as the four of us.” One doesn’t have to look far to see that affect than on ‘Hit My Head All Day’, the lead single and album opener. Shaw elaborates on its inner meaning, and by extension, details some of the broader concepts and themes canvassed throughout Secret Love. As she carefully explains, “The words were inspired by the feeling of being bombarded by messages constantly. Bombarded until you go numb. And that in that numb state, you’re pretty vulnerable. And manipulable. There are a lot of songs on Secret Love about complicity in some form, a lot of references to chemicals inside the body, which could also be seen as a metaphor for complicity. A lot of references to concealment and privacy, and also a recurring theme of relentlessness and repetition.” An example, perhaps, of how even making something new always rides on the back of the past. A thought echoed by Shaw when pondering the most challenging aspects of getting Secret Love laid down on wax and conversely, what proved to be a pleasant surprise from the overall process. “It’s always a pleasant surprise to have made another album. When you start, it feels like a mountain to climb. And wrestling with my own high expectations of myself is always a treat. I’m very proud of the record.” A statement that follows her own assessment of what it is that music brings to her life that nothing else does, “If I can use it to get into a focused state of mind, that’s wonderful. A moment of peace, everything flowing in the same direction. That’s hard to come by!”

And not to put a too finer point on it, that serenity, purpose and release, is exactly what will bring Shaw, Dowse, Maynard, and Buxton back to the table for the inevitable fourth album that is already quietly beginning to percolate.