Dry Cleaning – Secret Love (Recycled Black Vinyl)

With "Secret Love", London band Dry Cleaning present their most mature work to date. The third studio album, produced by Cate Le Bon, is a concentrated snapshot of the special chemistry between Florence Shaw, Tom Dowse, Nick Buxton and Lewis Maynard. Intensive sessions in Peckham, Chicago, Dublin and finally in the Black Box Studio in France resulted in a work that focuses on trust and vulnerability - the bonds between the four musicians as well as the fragile relationship between closeness and manipulation in society.

Musically, "Secret Love" builds a bridge between the paranoid undertones of early US punk, the cool strut of the Stones, stoner rock, no-wave experiments and delicate, almost pastoral guitar figures. The songs breathe both poignancy and playfulness, always carried by Shaw's unmistakable spoken vocals, which respond precisely to the dynamic soundscapes of her band. In doing so, she builds on a tradition of spoken word artists such as Laurie Anderson, but expands it with her very own mixture of absurdity, sensitivity and laconic humor.

The first single "Hit My Head All Day" exemplifies how "Secret Love" links social issues - such as disinformation and influence peddling - with personal insecurity and existential fragility. Yet despite all the heaviness, the album remains characterized by a playful openness: Ideas were tried out, discarded, reassembled - until a sound emerged that is simultaneously raw, elegant and unexpectedly warm.

"Secret Love" is an album about trust - in friendships, in music, in oneself - and about the risks involved. For Dry Cleaning, it marks the step towards a band that has condensed its avant-garde energy into an unmistakable expression.