The London group continue to stretch their post-punk framework, with Dry Cleaning Sliced By A Fingernail moving beyond the palette of recent single ‘Secret Love’. The band retain their clipped, incisive core, but introduce new textures and a looser, more exploratory structure.
The track opens with an effects-heavy, semi-spoken “Happy birthday to you…” before slipping into something more abstract. Florence Shaw’s vocal remains central, her delivery guiding the listener through a series of fragmented, surreal images.
There’s a visual quality to the writing that has long defined Dry Cleaning. With roots in illustration, the band approach lyrics as something sketched and reworked, each line feeling provisional, suggestive, and open-ended.
The band explain:
“A lot of attention makes them feel sliced up. So they fantasise about being hidden inside a huge flower bud and about being anonymous in a crowd at night. The image of a brown mark from a finger nail pressed into a petal inspired some of the lyrics.”
They also point to Welcome to My Life by Jooyoung Kim as a reference point, alongside imagery of peony buds that never quite open.
The single arrives with accompanying visuals from BULLYACHE, extending the track’s tactile, slightly uncanny atmosphere.
‘Sliced By A Fingernail’ is out now.
