Nashville’s Love for Dry Cleaning is No Secret
Nashville, Tennessee - May 10, 2026
Sunday nights on the east side of Nashville are never boring. There are the hangers-on to the weekend, service industry workers just getting off, and the folks who don’t work traditional nine-to-fives jonesing for some excitement. This past Sunday night, their nights converged, as they often do, at the Basement East. This time, to watch Dry Cleaning, a South London post-punk band that captivated the room as soon as they step on the stage.
It was a rescheduled show, and the crowd’s anticipation was tangible. In the lull between the opener, Hotline TNT, leaving the stage and the start of the show, duos and trios of friends, couples, and parents with their teen children speculate what exactly the night will have in store for them. Early on, the band let everyone know that they will be playing their most recent LP, Secret Love, in its entirety. From the lead single “Hit My Head All Day” to the album’s pop-adjacent moments like “Cruise Ship Designer” and the undeniable rock hit, “Rocks,” Dry Cleaning weaves a masterful soundscape of poetic guitar riffs, soul-bending basslines, and hypnotic synths.
Frontperson Florence Shaw’s deep, steady voice rides the music, lulling the crowd into a near trance-like state when paired with the rest of the band’s masterful instrumentation. The crowd gets particularly excited about “My Soul/Half Pint,” a goofy, yet poignant exploration of being tidy yet hating the gendered expectation for women to do the cleaning. Dry Cleaning’s genius lies in their perspective on the mundane. From the outside in, their music sounds like a beautiful thought experiment instead of a traditional song. For the most part, Shaw’s vocals are spoken rather than sung – an intensely raw delivery of the poetry they write in congruence with the music, adding to an experimental feeling.
The crowd is intensely engaged with the show. Shaw even takes a moment to acknowledge the excited crowd, “There’s some funny shoutouts today. I like funny shoutouts.” Confident in the room’s participation, she asks if the band has played their song “Conversations” in Nashville before, to which the crowd confidently answers with a resounding, “Yes!” In fact, Dry Cleaning played that very song in the very same room back in 2022. It’s a full-circle moment, and the crowd is ready.
The band will be touring in the US through the end of May before embarking on the Australian and UK legs of the tour. Find tickets here.
