Dry Cleaning’s second album isn’t a radical departure from last year’s outstanding New Long Leg. Florence Shaw still has the laconic, deadpan delivery of someone idly chatting over a garden fence. However, everything is slightly more refined, melodious and focused. Shaw has honed her lyrics. A mix of teasing scene setters (“It’s so good to meet you but not here, not here obviously”), deadpan non-sequiturs (“dog sledge people”) and occasional barbs at the state of Britain (“nothing works, everything’s expensive and opaque and privatised”) are delivered wonderfully just short of dispassionately. In a parallel universe she could be a newsreader, storyteller or star of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads.
