Dry Cleaning Return, Hear New Single "Hit My Head All Day"

One of the UK’s greatest exports, Dry Cleaning, will return on January 9 with a new album: the Cate Le Bon-produced Secret Love. This is big news for me and probably for you. It’s definitely big news for Paste, as we named Long Day Leg one of the best albums of the 2020s so far last year. While the South Londoners reissued their first two EPs in 2024, they’ve been M.I.A. on new material since releasing the Grammy-winning Stumpwork in October 2022. We can rest easy now, with lead single “Hit My Head All Day” to get lost in. According to a press release, Secret Love is set to be a combination of “the Reaganite paranoia of early ’80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence [Shaw]’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins.” Take every penny.

About “Hit My Head All Day,” Shaw explains: “The song is about manipulation of the body and mind. The lyrics were initially inspired by the use of misinformation on social media by the far right. There are powerful people that seek to influence our behavior for their own gain; to buy certain things, to vote a certain way. I find it hard to read people’s intentions and decide who to trust, even in everyday life. It’s easy to fall under the influence of a sinister stranger who seems like a friend. We took a playful approach to the song. At one point it had harmonica on it instead of a vocal. At the demo stage we were inspired by There’s a Riot Goin’ On by Sly and the Family Stone.”

Dry Cleaning Return, Hear New Single “Hit My Head All Day”

Secret Love is out January 9 via 4AD.