Dry Cleaning Shares Optimistic ‘Joy’ Single

English group Dry Cleaning released the fourth and final single, “Joy,” from their upcoming album, Secret Love, arriving this Friday (January 9) through 4AD. The latest track from the LP arrived with an accompanying music video starring the band’s Tom Dowse.

“Joy” follows previous Secret Love singles “Let Me Grow and You’ll See The Fruit,” “Cruise Ship Designer” and “Hit My Head All Day.” Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw found inspiration for the lyrics to “Joy” from the Virginia Tech University’s History of Food and Drink archive.

“Recently I’ve felt pessimistic about the world,” Shaw stated. “The influence of what they call ‘the manosphere,’ the genocide against Palestinians continuing despite huge protests, the rise of the racist Reform party in the UK, the promotion of AI in art and music. I wanted to try and stoke my drive to stay positive and spread softness and compassion. The wishes in the song have a naive quality.”

The music video for “Joy” features choreography from BULLYACHE and stars Dry Cleaning guitarist Tom Dowse, who detailed the video:

“We were looking to get away from the longer form, narrative and impressionistic confines of a typical music video and give ourselves, friends and fans a way to respond to the music in a more expressive way that feels personal.

We’ve seen the vastly different ways people behave at our shows – pogoing singalongs, full wig-outs, lone figures inhabiting the sound in their own private universe. With that in mind, we asked Bullyache to design a set of moves to each song on Secret Love as a starting point for ourselves and others to mimic or interpret them in a fun and idiosyncratic way, regardless of technical ability.”

Stream the visual for “Joy” below: