Dry Summer

One of the standout albums of 2021. It's everything you expected and more. Simply amazing. Dry Cleaning release their debut studio album New Long Leg on 4AD. The 10-track long-player, which includes ‘Strong Feelings’ and last year’s single ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’, was recorded over two weeks last summer at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales with producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). Following on from their thrillingly taut 2019 EPs Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks and Sweet Princess, New Long Leg is more ambitious and complex, with Shaw’s spoken vocals tightly intertwined with the band’s restless instrumentals. With lyrics preoccupied by themes like dissociation, escapism, daydreaming, complicated feelings of love, anger, revenge, anxiety, the kitchen, lethargy, forgetfulness, and survival, Shaw says, “the title is ambiguous; a new long leg could be an expensive present or a growth or a table repair.”

Featuring 16 pieces over its restless 40-minute duration, Tim Bowness's eighth studio album represents a new beginning on a new label Kscope. A collection of acute contrasts, Powder Dry is a vibrantly accessible and wildly experimental genre- blurring assault, embracing Industrial Rock, Electro Pop, singer- songwriter directness, haunted carnival soundscapes and more. Entirely produced, performed and written by Bowness (a first), Powder Dry was mixed (in Stereo and Surround Sound) by Bowness's partner in no- man (and 'The Album Years' podcast), Steven Wilson, who also acted as Bowness's sounding board during the mixing process.