Dry Cleaning share ‘Cruise Ship Designer’, the second single from their new album Secret Love, out 9 January 2026. The new track follows lead single ‘Hit My Head All Day’ and arrives alongside a music video featuring the band’s Lewis Maynard performing a dance routine choreographed for the track by BULLYACHE. ‘Cruise Ship Designer’ is a classic Dry Cleaning pop song sung from the perspective of a nautical entrepreneur who has deluded himself that his work serves society, its perky careerism also channelling some of XTC’s ‘Making Plans for Nigel’.
Vocalist and lyrcists Florence Shaw elaborates: “The song is about a cruise ship and hotel designer who’s skilled and paid well, but who doesn’t believe his role has real worth. He tries to enjoy it, and invests himself in meeting the challenges of the job.”
Dry Cleaning – ‘Cruise Ship Designer’
“Dry Cleaning provide a voice for people who are at their wits’ end but not yet beyond a wry smile at the absurdity of modern life.” – Crack
“They’re one of a kind.” – NME *****
“Dry Cleaning is one of the best living bands.” – Paste
“It’s good to have them back.” – THE FACE
Single Artwork by Erica Eyres
Secret Love is the finest expression yet of the profound friendships that created Dry Cleaning, between frontperson Florence Shaw, guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton and bassist Lewis Maynard. Here, the south London four-piece take their place in rock’s avant garde, catalysing the Reaganite paranoia of early 80s US punk and hardcore with the dry strut of Keith Richards, stoner rock, dystopian degradation, playful no wave and pastoral fingerpicking, while Florence’s delivery, meticulously calibrated to her bandmates’ soundscapes, asserts her in a lineage of spoken-word artists stretching from Laurie Anderson to Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins.
The follow-up to 2021’s New Long Leg and 2022’s Stumpwork started life in Peckham rehearsal spaces, all four members writing, playing and responding to each other in the room: in Dry Cleaning, music and lyrics form an inseparable, generative whole. Secret Love evolved through affirming sessions at Jeff Tweedy’s Chicago studio the Loft and explosive ones with Gilla Band’s Alan Duggan and Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios in Dublin, taking advantage of the sensory particulars of each space, and finally with Cate Le Bon at Black Box in the Loire Valley. After interviewing various potential producers, they picked Cate – an esteemed solo artist who has also made albums for Deerhunter, Devendra Banhart, Wilco and Horsegirl – for her unabashed positivity and openness. “Being in a room with them and hearing that vitality and life force that exists between them all, it’s such a unique expression,” she says.
Secret Love is released on 9 January 2026 and will be available digitally, on CD, cassette, black vinyl, limited edition Apricot vinyl (4AD store & indie retail) and Pearl/Arctic vinyl (Rough Trade exclusive). A limited number of signed photo prints will also be available via the 4AD store and selected indie stores. To pre-order the album, and for more details head HERE.
Dry Cleaning – Secret Love
4AD0868
Formats: Standard black LP, Limited Edition Apricot LP, Limited Edition Pearl/Arctic LP, Limited Edition JCD & CD
Tracklist
A1. Hit My Head All Day
A2. Cruise Ship Designer
A3. My Soul / Half Pint
A4. Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)
A5. Let Me Grow and You’ll See the Fruit
B6. Blood
B7. Evil Evil Idiot
B8. Rocks
B9. The Cute Things
B10. I Need You
B11. Joy
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