Our first Record of the Month for 2026 is Secret Love, the quite brilliant, Cate Le Bon-produced third LP from Dry Cleaning.
What a way to start the new year! Absolutely an album that we’ll be spinning, admiring and puzzling over well into this fledgling 2026. Secret Love is the third LP from Dry Cleaning, following 2023’s hit Stumpwork and their landmark 2021 debut LP, New Long Leg. As you well know, we have been long admirers (we even worked with the band all the way back in 2019 to double package their Sweet Princess // Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks EPs as Dinked Edition No.30) and the slow evolution on this third long player is just fantastic. The atmospherics are darker and more nuanced, the riffs are even knottier and the overall dynamic between the four-piece is so fluid. But we’d be remiss not to mention the influence of Cate Le Bon at the desk (it was recorded at France’s remote Studio Black Box), who really is becoming one of the most fascinating and vital producers around.
Lyrically, Secret Love moves between starkly funny and barbedly cutting, and Florence Shaw’s distinctive voice is vivid, but also shrouded in surrealism and metaphor. Well, I think? It’s actually hard to tell, but that's such a big part of Dry Cleaning’s allure. As a band they truly become a sum of more than their parts, which is both rare and hugely impressive. Derisions of the mundane, or perhaps a celebration? They are more adept than ever in capturing emotions, and as a unit they are bewitching and quite affecting in the mood they have created. For 101 reasons, this really is an album to get lost in; from the first play to the 101st play. A proper belter!
“the south London band double down on their haunting, peculiar brilliance”
The Guardian
Available in three, six or twelve month configurations, you can join the Drift Record of the Month Club and start adding to your amazing collection. Each month you will receive one new album on either vinyl or CD, based on your subscription type. The first delivery (whether CD or LP) will also include a complimentary Drift Pin.
Find out more here.
Recent 'Record of the Month' albums at Drift have included; Melody’s Echo Chamber, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Just Mustard, Cate Le Bon, Water From Your Eyes, Folk Bitch Trio, Durand Jones & The Indications, Stereolab, Walt McClements, Los Pirañas, Darkside, Delivery. White Denim, Kim Deal, W. H. Lung, Kit Sebastian, The Big Club, Orquesta Akokán, O., Mdou Moctar, Gustaf, Adrianne Lenker, William Doyle, Bill Ryder-Jones, Harp, Hotline TNT, Black Pumas, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Georgia, Cory Hanson, Overmono, North Americans, H. Hawkline, Yo La Tengo, The Murder Capital, Goat Girl, Black Country, New Road, Jane Weaver, Dry Cleaning, Squid, White Flowers, Stephen Fretwell, Chubby and the Gang, Low, BADBADNOTGOOD, Damon Albarn, Geese, Silverbacks, Cate Le Bon, Huerco S., Daniel Rossen, Kevin Morby, Vintage Crop, Viagra Boys, The Lounge Society, Jockstrap, Trevor Beales, Aoife Nessa Frances and Sarathy Korwar.