(Credits: Far Out / Buster Meaney / NPG Records)
Sat 17 January 2026 10:00, UK
It’s often said that Prince‘s influence can be heard in all music.
A pioneer of genre-bending, his music has encompassed a myriad of sounds from funk, R&B, pop, and rock, making him a touch point for artists across generations, but while I preface his career with such a description, you may be somewhat surprised to hear that the funky worlds of his music have found themselves in the DIY recording studios of south London’s indie scene.
Sure, British indie has always been at the vanguard of culture. But it nevertheless feels worlds away from the worlds of Prince, despite how universal it was. But in Dry Cleaning’s latest album, Secret Love, that is exactly what has happened.
The lead single from their third album, ‘Hit My Head All Day’, is a funky, industrial track that takes influence from the endless jam of Prince’s 1985 track, ‘America’.
In Far Out’s recent cover story, which featured Dry Cleaning, guitarist Tom Dowse explained, “‘Hit My Head’ has something about it that I think we all thought that’s really interesting.”
Prince – pictured in 1981 (Credits: Far Out / Allen Beaulieu)
He elaborated, “So slightly industrial sounding drums, but there’s like a funk element to it. I always talk to Louis about the fact it really reminds me of ‘America’ by Prince. I remember the first time hearing the 12-inch of that, and it’s like just this really long, sprawling 25-minute jam, basically. And I always thought that’s like, that was my entry into Prince, really.”
It’s not a method of approach most engineers would advise, given just how stressful an experience the song was for Prince’s staff engineer, Susan Rogers. Tasked with bringing this sprawling behemoth to life, Rogers recalled just how stretched she was in getting it laid down.
Explaining, “They would jam it for 15, 20, 30 minutes. We were working at the top of a reel of tape of 30 in a second, which gave us roughly 16 minutes; we ran until the tape run out. The band would get a groove going and just play, he might call out changes, and the song would fall from rehearsal.”
It’s ultimately what adds to the magic of the finished track, and understandably, why a band like Dry Cleaning would take inspiration. Their self-confessed obscurity lends itself to a different recording approach, one that foregrounds the endless possibilities of instrumental arrangement that Florence Shaw’s spoken vocals can sit on top of.
On ‘Hit My Head All Day’, Dry Cleaning do taper the ambition down slightly. However, it still hits the six-minute mark in run time and showcases the sort of structural lucidity that a musician like Prince championed, with Dowse’s guitars running wild over the top of Lewis Maynard’s basslines.
It’s one of the standout tracks from this new record, which proves innovation brings the musical worlds ever closer. From the ambitious sounds of Prince’s funky studio to the rehearsal rooms of South London, there seems to be somewhat of a throughline that experimentation facilitates, and both of these tracks are fine examples of that.
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