Dry Cleaning (Photo by Max Miechowski)
Dry Cleaning is one of the most-buzzed about UK bands in recent memory. Their latest album, Stumpwork, was released via 4AD to critical acclaim.
The band are returning to the United States for a tour in 2023, and they are performing at the Howard Theatre in DC on Tuesday, Jan. 31!
Not too long ago, Dry Cleaning performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, presenting their song “Hot Penny Day.” A majority of the track’s lyrics were written while front woman Florence Shaw walked around a flea market, as she recorded herself and wrote down things she saw.
The FADER deemed it a “Song You Need to Know,” writing, “A surge of crystalline, dream-sequence electric guitar announces the song, followed by a far more surprising twist: a funky bassline…’ Hot Penny Day’ delivers a captivating sketch of a train of thought set gloriously loose.”
Watch Dry Cleaning perform “Hot Penny Day” on The Tonight Show via YouTube:
Stumpwork was made in the aftermath of the death of two very important people to the band; bassist Lewis Maynard’s mother, and guitarist Tom Dowse’s grandfather. Both were instrumental in the band’s development, both in encouragement and, in the case of Maynard’s mother, literally providing the band with a place to rehearse. Shaw’s lyrics explore not only loss and detachment but all the twists and turns, simple joys and minor gripes of human experience too.
Ultimately, what emerges from it all is a subtle but assertive optimism, and a lesson in the value of curiosity. Stumpwork is a heady mix that is entirely the band’s own, distinguishing it from anything produced by their contemporaries.
Dry Cleaning
W/ Spirit of the Beehive, Nourished by Time
Howard Theatre
Friday, Jan. 31
Doors @
$25 GA/ $50 Balcony
All ages