DRY CLEANING

Stumpwork (4AD)

London’s Dry Cleaning are a pretty popular band, certainly when weighed up against the sort of music they make – jangly postpunk with few to no hooks, coupled to exclusively spoken lyrics of the wilfully elusive ‘found poetry’ type – and it’s not wholly obvious to me how it happened. This isn’t meant disparagingly at all: I’d wager the band remain quite surprised by it, too, and on second album Stumpwork they seem to be enjoying a freedom to bring their fringe tastes into the frame.

Florence Shaw, she of the spoken lyrics, remains a variable factor for this listener – plenty of her micro-observations feel like unlocked wisdom, others just fall flat – while musically speaking, album opener Anna Calls From The Arctic and the coda, or outro, of Conservative Hell both feature lovely deviations into candyfloss-light ambient jazz. To finish off, Icebergs’ guitar and bass both have something of Slint’s Good Morning Captain about them.

words NOEL GARDNER