Dry Cleaning at the Empty Bottle

The South London band Dry Cleaning performed at Chicago’s Empty Bottle on Nov. 16th and 17th. Ginger caught the show on the 17th. Dry Cleaning is singer Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton, and they are tight, and getting noticed. It is not often that a band will in mid-set thank their Manager, who is actually in the crowd, at the show, but it happened on the 17th. They thanked someone else but who could make out what they said with the Bottle’s low-quality sound system.* 

In any case, Dry Cleaning thanked their Manager and that seems well warranted. The band’s only been around for a few years, forming up sometime in 2018/2019, and their song book is quite small. They’ve released only a six track EP, Sweet Princess, from 2019, another six track EP from 2019, Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks, and the 2021 album New Long Leg with 10 tracks. So, there may not be many tracks to pick from but whatever they are doing it is getting them on the Stephen Colbert show (in August, 2021) and on Nov. 19th on Jimmy Fallon Live. And then lo and behold there appears a picture of Maynard in a NYTimes article on GenZ’s hitting classic bars in New York. That’s some good marketing. Good work Manager. (“That’s Mr. Manager; no, just Manager.”) Of course it helps that they were voted one of NME’s 100 new essential artists for 2020, the reviewer applauding appropriately Shaw’s Goodnight lyrics (first song on the first, Sweet Princess, EP) – the singer mourning her dead cat coupled with a query about spitting out cum onto the carpet of a Travelodge hotel room – in your face banality, banality with cojones. That is quite an introduction to the world and the kind of stuff that can get you on TV.

The acclaim is warranted. Their lyrics are sparse and observant, tipping towards melancholy, cryptic and acerbic, while the music is tied-together pandemonium. Shaw is an ice maiden, a Teutonic chanteuse with an affinity for the spoken word. She is Patti Smith without the howl or melody, but it works, in large part due to the incredible rhythm section of Dowse on guitar, Maynard on bass and Buxton on drums. Man are they tight, a power jam band that drives. Buxton plays it clean, often with a fabulous backbeat that Drowse and Maynard jump on. When this trio gets going the sound is solid, Drowse moving forward, quick power note after quick power note, slicing and dicing, with Maynard’s bass right behind him. 

We have no idea how Shaw can front the band with not even a tap of her toes; she stands there, sometimes moving a finger or two, once or twice stroking the ends of a few strands of her long, straight hair. When she grabs a maraca and shakes her hand adding to the beat, it can be jarring, and it is not just her manor, she is like an oracle, spitting out dour riddles, like this from “Her Hippo”: 

And where does that romantic jealousy come from
Te amo Manuel
Married then
Her hippo
Every day he's a dick

Or this from, “Scratchcard Lanyard”:

It's a Tokyo bouncy ball
It's an Oslo bouncy ball
It's a Rio de Janiero bouncy ball
Filter, I love these mighty oaks, don't you?

Fact is anyone who uses “Yabba” as a lyric is okay in our book, and all the lyrics do fit in with the music. They play in contrasts, the thoughtfully detached front singer and the power driving band behind. Together the image that comes to mind is of a mother and her three children in the kitchen. When the mother stoically turns to the sink, knee-deep in her Zoloft, and gazes contemplatively out the window at the neighborhood, the three children turn maniacal in the background, cereal being thrown out of cereal bowls, chairs overturned in demented glee, crazed monkeys set loose from the zoo. It is exactly the kind of music you want to get wired to, great in concert and equally great on an LP. 

We can recommend some songs, Her Hippo, Strong Feelings and (our favorite?) Scratchcard Lanyard off the New Long Legs album, Magic of Meghan off the Sweet Princess EP, and Jam After School off the Boundary Road EP. The thing is Dry Cleaning has a sound. It does not matter that much what song you start with. Click on Spotify, search for Dry Cleaning, and there you go. And therein may lie the problem. When you listen to Dry Cleaning you inevitably end up asking yourself where do they go with this? You are caused to question the fundamental proposition of the band in the first instance, and that is a worry. It’s like watching Nation of Language and wondering when they will ever get a lead guitarist to join them? But Nation of Language will evolve; they have a great sound, are adept at getting guest guitarists to join them for a song or two in every set, and Dry Cleaning will evolve as well. There are songs in the live set that hint at improvisational space, space to do new things with music and lyrics over time. And every now and then Shaw hints at a melody in her singing, but whatever tomorrow might bring we hope they remain true to their vision. They are solid on a variety of levels, as musicians, as poets, as observers in a maddening world, and they are deserving of their current rising acclaim.

*(We love the Empty Bottle! As we’ve previously said, it is a tried-and-true Chicago music institution, frequented by serious and knowledgeable music goers, and has been host to some incredible acts including White Stripes, Flaming Lips, Interpol, OK Go, Girl Talk, Blood Orange, Parquet Courts, the Strokes, and US Girls, to name a few, and we just saw Nation of Language and The Wants play there, both bands making a serious move forward. So, we love the Empty Bottle but come on guys put a few bucks into improving your sound system.)