London post-punks Dry Cleaning have expanded their third album, Secret Love, with three new songs recorded during the original sessions with producer Cate Le Bon. ‘Sliced by a Fingernail’, ‘Grass’ and ‘I Have the Key’ are far too good to feel like deluxe-edition leftovers: three compact studies of hiding, grieving and attempting to remain human while the world becomes increasingly unbearable.
“The three new songs have a lot of tenderness and vulnerability to them. They’re about feelings of love and loss but also humour that comes along with those heavy feelings.”
That combination is Dry Cleaning’s speciality. Florence Shaw can move from genuine distress to an oddly specific image that makes you laugh, then leave you wondering whether laughing was appropriate.
‘Sliced by a Fingernail’ imagines hiding inside an enormous flower bud or disappearing into a karaoke crowd. It is a song about wanting to escape attention, accompanied by a BULLYACHE film in which that discomfort becomes something physical, funny and deeply unsettling.
‘Grass’ deals with the peculiar grief of losing somebody who is still alive. Its imagery grew from visits to Switzerland’s melting Rhône Glacier and Madeira’s ancient Laurissilva forest: landscapes carrying their own reminders that survival and loss can exist at the same time.
The heaviest of the three is ‘I Have the Key’, written from Shaw’s sadness and helplessness at the state of the world as the assault on Gaza began. Bruce Lamont’s improvised saxophone helped shape both the words and their delivery.
“The lyrics to ‘I Have The Key’ came from a feeling of sadness and helplessness at the state of the world.”
BULLYACHE’s three accompanying films place bodies in conflict with themselves and their luxurious surroundings: hair whipping, limbs thrashing and grief refusing to behave elegantly. Together, the songs and visuals make a fittingly awkward addition to Secret Love. Nothing is resolved, but at least the discomfort has somewhere interesting to go.
Secret Love (Deluxe Edition) is out digitally now. The expanded vinyl edition follows on 16 October via 4AD.