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Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg (debut album)

Started by Retinend, April 02, 2021, 12:52:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

good times

Quote from: Janie Jones on April 02, 2021, 01:59:36 PM
Every time this dreary old shit comes on BBC 6Music I want to kill. I understand how people can listen to The Fall or Art Brut or John Cooper Clarke with the Invisible Girls and think, 'Oh I can do that, recite my clever lyrics over some good music, let's form a band.' But what they are missing is that those bands all feature brilliant, talented lyricist vocalists who understand pitch and rhythm and cadence. Dry Cleaning's jaw-tremblingly boring vocalist is just reciting her tedious lyrics over some competent guitar tracks.

I fear you may have nailed it here - having listened through the album this morning I have decided 1. they do indeed have one trick 2. it's a good trick, but crushingly competent.

If they were on at a festival I would watch them, but I expect they will become a musical taste signifier for bores.

PlanktonSideburns

this thread is working as a reminder to chuck some Suburban Lawns on

listened to that song with the twix line in, which sounds good written down, but the whole thing is so joyless. - theres a whole ocean of great new wave stuff that already exists, how could you injest all that and then do this? its a flatter version of that, but with the hindsight of the archive

PlanktonSideburns

why not absorb all that great new wave stuff and do something fun with it, like do a daft briget bardot impression

or get a load of harry partch prepared guitar zoothornrolloesqueriffs in the mix

you know, something

I think it's great you miserable gonks. And the album's different enough to the EPs to suggest they're not one-trick ponies.

Retinend

Quote from: good times on April 06, 2021, 10:42:59 AMIf they were on at a festival I would watch them, but I expect they will become a musical taste signifier for bores.

Well I expect they will become a musical taste signifier for people who are cool and interesting. ...so there.

rue the polywhirl

I don't think I'd want to venture on 6 music if this is on its rotation 10 or more times a day. It just sounds like Magdalen Burns or someone of her ilk vlogging over bogstandard indie. Take it to a volcano to wash, not the dry cleaners.

peanutbutter

I cant help but feel like a lot of the current wave of indie post punk types being pumped out right now are retreading stuff done in the 90s that has gotten somewhat lost to time due to occuring in that awkward patch between print media collapsing and online media being developed enough to endure. Like, loads of stuff  that's kinda interesting but doesn't really work, but also doesn't work as interesting for me because I've already heard someone that haven't entered my head in over a decade do it at least as well.
Like, I could probably get away with straight up ripping off Long Fin Killie in their entirety, mightn't endure very well but it'd at least get some raves as being innovative what with even their highest Spotify playcounts in the low 5 figures.

chveik

Quote from: The Mollusk on April 02, 2021, 01:03:27 PM
Also "inb4" chveik comes in to tell you how he wishes post-punk was just fuck off and die already ;)

:)

imitationleather

Quote from: rue the polywhirl on April 06, 2021, 07:35:41 PM
It just sounds like Magdalen Burns or someone of her ilk vlogging over bogstandard indie.

Haha. That proper made me chuckle.

PlanktonSideburns


Neomod

Bored Keymarkets checkout girl's musings over an 80's goth soundtrack.

I like it[nb]in small doses[/nb]

purlieu

CD came in the post today, definitely enjoying it. Something about Florence Shaw's delivery and lyrics really reminds me of Karl Hyde from Underworld, more so than other talky post-punk vocalists actually. So that's a plus from me.

lazyhour

That 6music song is spoiled by the line about having scabs on her head. I don't wanna hear about someone's head scabs when I'm sipping my morning coffee. Or again when I'm eating my lunch. Or again when I'm having an apple in the afternoon. Or again when I'm stuffing my face with sausages and mash.

I seldom listen to 6music after dinnertime.

Pauline Walnuts

In at number 4 on the hit parade album chart.

Dusty Substance


Will definitely give them a listen but I'm not keen on the name.

There are certain band names that I have a real problem trying to get past. Dry Cleaning is one. As are Car Seat Headrest, American Football and Real Estate.

Norton Canes


Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: Dusty Substance on April 11, 2021, 06:36:41 PM

There are certain band names that I have a real problem trying to get past. Dry Cleaning is one. As are Car Seat Headrest, American Football and Real Estate.

They're no Sunny Day Real Estate

Retinend

I don't like the style of writing they use in the Pitchfork review, but I do agree that the lyrical content of the song Strong Feelings is like a key to how singer, Florence Shaw, works. She is herself the "Emo Dead Stuff Collector" and, as she writes words to the music, stuff simply "comes to the brain": phrases overheard that rattle around in your head like a riddle. I like how ambiguous they sound.

This is another bit I like, from the song Leafy at 2:00:

never talk about your ex; never never never never, never slag them off because then they know, then they know

Dusty Substance


Just listened to some tracks from the album.

Yeah, I won't be doing that again.

non capisco

Quote from: Janie Jones on April 02, 2021, 01:59:36 PM
Dry Cleaning's jaw-tremblingly boring vocalist is just reciting her tedious lyrics over some competent guitar tracks.

I can only echo Janie's assessment. This music is so bloody flat.

The Mollusk

Quote from: Retinend on April 11, 2021, 10:55:45 PM
I don't like the style of writing they use in the Pitchfork review, but I do agree that the lyrical content of the song Strong Feelings is like a key to how singer, Florence Shaw, works. She is herself the "Emo Dead Stuff Collector" and, as she writes words to the music, stuff simply "comes to the brain": phrases overheard that rattle around in your head like a riddle. I like how ambiguous they sound.

This tactic works wonders for the likes of Mark E. Smith or Andy Falkous as those phrases fizz and bubble and crackle with a bizarre energy all their own, (admittedly owed in large part to their broadly idiosyncratic delivery) but by comparison it's woefully, interminably drab coming from Shaw. I know comparing Dry Cleaning to The Fall or mclusky isn't completely fair, since DC are quite obviously intending to be a lot more, uh, dry than that, but still this is inescapably boring by its own set of standards. Bands who do this sort of drowned-rat heart-on-sleeve post-punk cynicism thing properly, like Protomartyr or Courtney Barnett, are leagues ahead.

I can see why people might enjoy it as a substitute for silence, like some sort of algorithm-generated "Young Marble Giants rip-offs to study/relax to" feed, but beyond that? I've seen people heaping praise on this album, they love it, they're enraptured by its lyrical content, and I can't fathom that myself. It does precisely nothing for me.

SpiderChrist

Quote from: Retinend on April 03, 2021, 06:45:39 AM
I'm surprised there are so many naysayers. I guess it's all about the voice.

It's very dull and forgettable - musically, lyrically and vocally.

holyzombiejesus

I finally listened to the album and thought it was so dull. The music's just bad plodding indie-by-numbers. I actually think the 'boring' voice was the most interesting thing about it but you'd need some different backing it to make it worth listening to.

Neomod

Musically it reminds me of watching Campeg Velocet at Dingwalls waiting for my mate's band to come on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFdgtMmCHI

sardines

Yeah not getting the appeal either. I wonder if it is the production and maybe it works differently live. There is no friction or interplay between vocals and music. I know that is sort of the point but not to the extent where the whole exercise of being in a band is rendered pointless.

I'm always interested in who are the tastemakers here? Marc Riley plays  a dozen variations on this theme each day yet someone decided this particular one was worthy of adoration outside of a Fierce Panda 7" singles club.

SteveDave

Quote from: Janie Jones on April 02, 2021, 01:59:36 PM
Every time this dreary old shit comes on BBC 6Music I want to kill. I understand how people can listen to The Fall or Art Brut or John Cooper Clarke with the Invisible Girls and think, 'Oh I can do that, recite my clever lyrics over some good music, let's form a band.' But what they are missing is that those bands all feature brilliant, talented lyricist vocalists who understand pitch and rhythm and cadence. Dry Cleaning's jaw-tremblingly boring vocalist is just reciting her tedious lyrics over some competent guitar tracks.

Kevin?

lazyhour

Apparently there has been a sudden backlash against this band because... it turns out they're quite posh?

good times

Really?

I just automatically assume most guitar bands are a bit posh nowadays, especially those on 6 music's playlist.

Also who cares? I don't think anything in Dry Cleaning's music or (especially) lyrics is incongruous with the idea of them being a "a bit posh", if anything it's a reasonably creative expression of what being a bit posh is while still holding onto some semblance of creative credibility which must be incredibly hard to pull off.

It's hardly IDLES making a name for themselves by acting like the voice of the underclass while covering up their own backgrounds.

I suspect most of the people leading the backlash are a bit posh themselves and afraid of it, most cunts who still use Twitter or write for indie music sites these days are.

PlanktonSideburns

Yea these guys sounded posh, no need to dislike them for that


peanutbutter

They're shit, and part of why is because they're doing a kind of very tired very upper class dissociated thing that tons of indie types have done before, but being upper class in itself doesn't warrrant the critique.

I imagine it's more that it's a critique that people who dislike them have found that sticks with a lot of people who otherwise did like them. Or the novelty was brief and they're struggling to put into words why its gotten tired, and it's pretty fair to criticise it for art-school as fuck but maybe that's something they're not able to do.



What is up with people using "middle class" to refer to people who are privately educated and able to piss away their 20s and 30s without a worry of how its gonna impact them when they're older cos they're gonna inherit a few houses (are probably living in a house in London their parents own too). Feel like it just feeds into a mindset that then gets weaponised against people who are anything other than trapped in some brexit-voting deprived shithole.