Dry Cleaning came together in a somewhat atypical way — three musicians who’d already been through the ringer with failed projects, finding their spark with a front woman who had no musical experience. That’s also what makes them special, with Florence Shaw’s deadpan-then-vicious spoken word delivery adding a new twist on Dry Cleaning’s gritty post-punk. Her lyrics come from stray details and overheard conversations and YouTube detritus — the jumble of a mind in an era of too much information and too many stimuli, the outpouring of it all ultimately making Dry Cleaning somehow therapeutic.
For anyone looking to get a quick sense of the vibe of the bracing debut EP from the London group Dry Cleaning, vocalist Florence Shaw provides a tip right out of the gate: “During what was probably the longest two-and-a-half months of my life after a near death experience, I could not sleep/…The only thing that kept me going was Saw 2.” Dry Cleaning—emphasis on “dry”—use bleak humor and acid sarcasm as a way to cut life’s thousand tiny indignities down to size. You have to be a sharp writer to make this kind of withering wit work, but fortunately, Shaw is one of the sharpest. When a date goes south and Shaw returns from the bathroom to discover her would-be partner has ghosted, she offers, “I thought you liked me, but maybe I was just a captive audience. You did seem a bit bored when I was talking.” In “The Magic of Meghan” (which certainly appears to be about a member of the Royal Family, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions), Shaw tartly observes, “Never has one outfit been designed to send so many messages/ Earrings to empower women/ Bag that helps charity/ jeans made in Wales/ Cruelty-free coat.” Come to think of it, that line may be appreciative rather than cutting, but that’s one of the things that makes Shaw’s writing so good—it’s beguilingly difficult to read.
The band surrounds her verse with the kind of jabbing guitars and lockstep rhythms that defined their home country’s post-punk years, bands like Delta 5 and the Au Pairs. Shaw would probably hate that comparison—but I bet she’d write a killer song about it.
The Fat Angel Sings 