I can hardly stand Ducks, Newburyport. Heralded as one of the finest novels of 2019, Lucy Ellmann\u2019s stream-of-consciousness prose follows an Ohioan housewife who spends her hours baking pies and cleaning the domicile, all while occasionally ruminating on American politics and the lives of her children. It takes an experimental approach, each of its roughly 1,000 pages composed of (mostly) a single run-on sentence. Nearly every phrase begins with \u201cthe fact that,\u201d and it remains fixed in that mode until the novelty wears thin around 100 pages in. Despite its critical acclaim, Ellmann\u2019s epic feels anything but.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s precisely where that book fell frustratingly short for me\u2014namely its rote repetitions and dull style\u2014that Dry Cleaning\u2019s Secret Love soars. Stream-of-consciousness writing, in the wrong hands, can quickly hit a brick wall. Florence Shaw, whose musings on the mundane sit at the forefront of her post-punk band\u2019s sonic squall, litters her lyrics with enough wry humor, expressive delivery, and colorful diction to make matters continuously interesting. Accompanying her piquant writing are guitarist Tom Dowse, bassist Lewis Maynard, drummer Nick Buxton, and, notably new to the ensemble for their third album, producer Cate Le Bon.<\/p>\n
At the helm of the decade\u2019s post-punk groups, Dry Cleaning have been churning out this blend of Shaw\u2019s interior monologues and art-rock backdrops since their 2021 breakout debut New Long Leg<\/a>, and they quickly followed it up with the slightly more muted Stumpwork<\/a> just one year later. With Secret Love, the South Londoners\u2019 compelling combination reaches a zenith. In the four years since their last outing, the quartet doesn\u2019t succumb to diminishing returns but instead delivers more of what made them such a draw in the first place.<\/p>\n The star of the show, as on Dry Cleaning\u2019s previous two records, is Shaw\u2019s writing. Certain lines jump out of the mix, like reading a book with small sections highlighted by a previous owner. On \u201cThe Cute Things,\u201d she details twin siblings at an impasse, capturing familial disconnect in one pithy sentence: \u201cWe\u2019re meant to be from the same egg, but you confuse me.\u201d \u201cLet Me Grow And You\u2019ll See the Fruit\u201d follows a narrator who professes their unmatched ability to ward off solicitous distractions, only to indulge in a different distraction of their own choosing. \u201cI can watch this TV show for however long, Armstrong,\u201d Shaw deadpans. Her character delights at not being interrupted by a \u201cvideo call or a survey or a dick pic or a loud bang or a smell that comes up.\u201d In a similar vein, \u201cEvil Evil Idiot\u201d staunchly defends microwaved meals, defiantly dismissing those \u201cmalicious studies\u201d that underline the heating device\u2019s carcinogenic effects.<\/p>\n Shaw\u2019s bandmates augment her ear-catching observations. Take Dowse\u2019s performance on \u201cMy Soul \/ Half Pint,\u201d in which elastic guitar lines dance around the stereo field like the duster and vacuum its narrator uses to begrudgingly clean their living area. The locked-in rhythm section provides steady scenery on \u201cSecret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy),\u201d but its subtle switch-ups hint at the covert romance at the song\u2019s center. Le Bon\u2019s dynamic production embellishes the misanthropic paranoia that courses through centerpiece \u201cBlood.\u201d These elements prevent any sort of roteness from settling in unbidden, a pitfall that stream-of-consciousness can so easily fall prey to. The key principle is that Shaw\u2019s meditations on mundanity never actually sound mundane.<\/p>\n Secret Love reaffirms Dry Cleaning\u2019s underlying ethos that the ordinary is worth mining for the extraordinary. Standout moments couched in seemingly standard fare has been this band\u2019s lingua franca since their inception. This notion achieves its full force on \u201cCruise Ship Designer,\u201d an early highlight that documents the mostly banal thoughts of its titular character. They don\u2019t personally like cruises, but they \u201cwant to serve a useful purpose.\u201d They \u201cdesire very much a place in society.\u201d On the surface, it\u2019s a straightforward tune about a random occupation. But at its core, it explores the human necessity of belonging, and the darkness of finding that belonging through economic output and productivity. Shaw ends it with a kicker, a brief meta-commentary on her band\u2019s inner mechanisms, granting us a peek behind the proverbial curtain: \u201cI make sure there are hidden messages in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n Grant Sharples is a writer, journalist and critic. His work has also appeared in Interview, Uproxx, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Ringer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. He lives in Kansas City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I can hardly stand Ducks, Newburyport. 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