This week’s feature album is New Long Leg, the debut studio album from South London post-punk band Dry Cleaning.
Dry Cleaning was formed by friends Tom Dowse, Nick Buxton and Lewis Maynard after a karaoke party in 2017 inspired a collaboration. They wrote instrumentally to begin with until six months later Florence Shaw, a visual artist, university lecturer and picture researcher by day – with no prior musical experience – turned up to a band rehearsal armed with reams of her own collected writing and a copy of Michael Bernard Loggins’ Fears Of Your Life to read out over the music. Before long she was the group’s frontperson, contributing words of her own, and serving as the perfect foil to the band’s music.
Following on from their thrillingly taut 2019 EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess, New Long Leg is more ambitious and complex, with Shaw’s spoken vocals tightly intertwined with the band’s restless instrumentals. With lyrics preoccupied by themes like dissociation, escapism, daydreaming, complicated feelings of love, anger, revenge, anxiety, the kitchen, lethargy, forgetfulness, and survival, Shaw says, “the title is ambiguous; a new long leg could be an expensive present or a growth or a table repair.”
The 10-track long-player, which includes ‘Strong Feelings’ and last year’s single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’, was recorded over two weeks last summer at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). ‘Strong Feelings’ is a love song, of sorts. Shaw says, “it’s about secretly being in love with someone who doesn’t know it, and Brexit’s disruptive role in romantic relationships.” Its accompanying visuals, directed by guitarist Tom Dowse, came about after Google searches brought together an informational video on road building basics from New Zealand and Massachusetts-based glitch artist, Sabato Visconti.
New Long Leg is out now. PBS members can tune in all week for a chance to win a copy of the album. Not a member? Join now!
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
Bill Callahan - 'Cowboy'
Plutonic Lab - 'Good Thing' feat. Natalie Slade
Jobby Valente - 'Mi Moin Mi Ou'
Angel Olsen - 'It's Every Season (Whole New Mess)'
The Black Heart Death Cult - 'Death From Above'
Other Joe - 'A Walk In The Zone'
Jan Jelinek - 'ICE 695'
Dima Pantyushin & Sasha Lipsky - 'Book'
The Hot Blood - 'Give on Up'
