Dry Cleaning have announced their third studio album ‘Secret Love’ – listen to new single ‘Hit My Head All Day’ below.
- READ MORE: Dry Cleaning on ‘Stumpwork’ and playing Grace Jones’ Meltdown Festival: “She’s such a hero”
The south London post-punk band are due to release the record on January 9 via 4AD, following on from 2022’s ‘Stumpwork’. Pre-order/pre-save here.
Opener ‘Hit My Head All Day’ was written around the time of the last US election, and shows the “evolution” of frontperson Florence Shaw’s “signature mix of absurdism and sensitivity”, per a press release.
“I was thinking a lot about the use of social media by the far right, where they’re orchestrating people’s opinions with carefully engineered videos or memes,” she explained.
Shaw was undergoing physio for nerve problems too, willingly letting herself be manoeuvred by her therapist. “It sounds so stupid in comparison,” she continued. “But I’ve only just met her and I’m supposed to be floppy.
“I was thinking, this is interesting, because this is good – she’s helping me. But then as soon as you leave her office, you need to be tense again because anybody could be coming at you.
“I’m always looking for a rule: am I supposed to be open or sharp?”
The forthcoming ‘Secret Love’ finds Shaw wanting to reveal more of herself. “There’s a tension between feeling like I want to hide, but at the same time a certain yearning to be seen by people and to grow – but also feeling quite mortified about that,” she said.
She wrote the LP in various practice rooms with her bandmates – guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard – with production coming from Cate Le Bon (Deerhunter, Devendra Banhart, Wilco, Horsegirl).
Shaw took suggestions from the other members this time around, rather than sticking to a preconceived plan. “If I want things to be more open or blunter, a bit less sophisticated, that would be helped by not allowing myself to ringfence the whole thing,” she added.
Dry Cleaning wanted to push themselves harder than ever before, and to explore the “radically different things that can be achieved by going to different people”, according to Buxton.
Shaw went on: “We’re very confident about our identity. It doesn’t seem to be possible to break it.”
Le Bon recalled: “Watching Flo at work is so rewarding. Seeing her process, how detailed it is, how much work goes into something feeling off the cuff; the musicality and the way she meticulously places words.”
The tracklist for Dry Cleaning’s ‘Secret Love’ is:
1. ‘Hit My Head All Day’
2. ‘Cruise Ship Designer’
3. ‘My Soul / Half Pint’
4. ‘Secret Love (Concealed In A Drawing Of A Boy)’
5. ‘Let Me Grow And You’ll See the Fruit’
6. ‘Blood’
7. ‘Evil Evil Idiot’
8. ‘Rocks’
9. ‘The Cute Things’
10. ‘I Need You’
11. ‘Joy’
Dry Cleaning are set to play a headline show at the O2 Academy Brixton in London on April 22. Tickets go on general sale at 10am BST this Friday (October 3) – you’ll be able to buy yours here. Alternatively, fans who pre-order ‘Secret Love’ can access a pre-sale tomorrow (Wednesday October 1).
Over the summer, the band supported The Maccabees at their All Points East 2025 reunion show.
Early last year, Dry Cleaning won the Best Recording Package award at the Grammys for their ‘Stumpwork’ album artwork.
NME gave the LP a glowing five-star review, describing it as “a record that, when given the requisite time and attention, offers unfathomable depths to explore”.
Speaking to NME about the album, Tom Dowse explained: “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.”
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