Dry Cleaning announce new EP ‘Swampy’
Britain’s current best post-punk band Dry Cleaning don’t rest. After releasing their phenomenal debut album New Long Leg back in 2021, the quartet wasted absolutely no time by getting their sophomore album, Stumpwork, finished and ready to ship out by 2022. These guys either love working or hate sleeping because we’re getting even more new music from them.
This time it’s in the form of a brand-new EP entitled Swampy. Consisting of two new tracks, two remixes of older material, and one demo, Swampy is a mini taster for anyone who didn’t manage to catch Dry Cleaning on their recent North American tour. That rings especially true for the remixes, which were helmed by Charlotte Adigéry, Bolis Pupul and Nourished By Time, acts that supported Dry Cleaning on those American gigs.
Rather than dangling a tasty morsel in front of us, the band are cutting right to the chase by releasing the two new tracks as singles. The EP’s title track ‘Swampy’ once again finds singer Florence Shaw musing on some fairly strange yet oddly mundane imagery. Instead of disco pickles, this time Shaw has her sights set on casting concrete, PlayStations (or plant stations? It’s hard to tell), and “beanbags bingo”, whatever that means. Tom Dowse’s guitar is bright and chiming, but since this is still Dry Cleaning, there’s plenty of unsettling darkness around the edges of ‘Swampy’.
‘Sombre Two’ is the more experimental piece, opening with the sounds of bowed strings that seem like they’re coming from miles away. Eventually, Lewis Maynard enters on what sounds like an upright bass. To keep the jazzy feeling going, Nick Buxton hops on the vibraphone until it all sounds like a lounge lizard found its way into David Lynch’s Roadhouse bar. No Shaw here: it’s just the boys kicking out an appropriately low-key instrumental.
“These two songs were recorded in the Stumpwork sessions and they feel like good companions to us,” the band explains in a statement. “They share a dusty, desolate and spacey atmosphere. On the eve of this release we have been touring through the southwest USA, where these songs feel at home in the arid, Mars-like landscape of the Arizona desert.”
I can see that feeling emanating from these songs as well, but I see a slight divide. More than anything else, I hear ‘Swampy’ representing the band’s initial sound on New Long Leg and ‘Sombre Two’ covering ground that the band have embraced on Stumpwork. It’s strange that a band as new as Dry Cleaning can already have multiple eras to look back on, but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the group’s third album is another radical genre shift. Here’s hoping it is, at least.
Check out ‘Swampy’ and ‘Sombre Two’ down below. Swampy is set for a March 1st release.
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