ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Dry Cleaning Stumpwork 4AD Out Friday Oct 21 ★★★★★

The London quartet’s 2021 debut, New Long Leg, was one of the oddest albums to reach the top five in years and was on my, and many other, Best of 2021 lists. A year on, Stumpwork finds Florence Shaw still speaking to us in her detached way about seemingly random things such as otters but ‘there are no otters’ and leaving questions hanging such as ‘can you not…?’ That track Kwenchy Kups circles and encircles like their breakthrough track Scratchyard Lanyard. Musically, there is more of a Smiths-ish guitar jangle than the grungier approach taken on New

Long Leg. Florence sings more, but distractedly, unsurprisingly, most notably on the slyly urgent tracks Don’t Press Me and Gary Ashby. Driver’s Story seems to reference comments about their work ‘No la la las at the start. Replace with oohs’. I don’t think they did either. Let’s hope they just stay beautifully strange.