Cool people like cool things, which is why we asked Florence Shaw to share a taste of her taste on Perfectly Imperfect.

Florence Shaw is lead singer of the London-based art rock band, Dry Cleaning. I first heard their music on their 2019 EP Sweet Princess and was blown away by the infectious mix of Flo’s deadpan spoken-word delivery and the high tempo post-punk instrumentation. They’re incredible live and I like the band’s choice to play the iconic Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown, which led to them being included in the New York Times piece on the resurgence of New York old school institutions. Dry Cleaning’s 2021 release, New Long Leg, landed high on my year end albums list, and their new single “Don’t Press Me” sees Shaw experimenting with her singing voice a bit more and I love it. Florence is a one of a kind singer and lucky for us, she’s here to tell us what she’s been into.

Without further ado

Florence Shaw (instagram)

📰 The Edda Tasiemka Archive

An incredible resource. This exhaustive archive of newspaper cuttings was assembled by Edda and Hans Tasiemka, and is now housed at Hymag in Woolwich Arsenal, London. Bulging foolscap document wallets in muted yellows, pinks and blues have themes jotted on ad hoc printer paper spines in Sharpie, groupings like Crimes Committed by Children, Accupuncture, Coal, Sienna Miller, Whales. Each file is bursting with hand cut articles from the British press on these very subjects. I spent a productive day there last year, reading and writing in the run up to recording our second album.

🗣️ Lexicon Valley

I love this podcast. It’s about language. More specifically you could say it’s about conversational speech, intonation, and the host John McWhorter does a great job of bending his voice around the phrases and words he’s talking about. He’s a fan of musical theatre and plays a few show tunes with lyrics which relate to the themes of the episode. I like to have podcasts, or tv, people talking, on pretty much all the time I’m at home. I also need that on flights (I don’t like to fly but I have to do it often). So this podcast feels like a friend.

🤝 Freecycle

I used Freecycle for the first time a few months ago when I was moving house and needed to pass on a few odd things. I didn’t expect it to open up a whole community to me, and to provide me with so much joy and entertainment. I’ve met lots of nice people on there. It’s also a reminder of how many people in London are really struggling and relying on free resources to get by. I recommend signing up to the daily digest of new things on offer in your area. I love to read through the post titles. Yesterday I opened the digest to find:

Relief for aching muscles! 

Mini American Football and Diablo, please take both

Purple Bean Bag Cube

Authentic Danish settees

Urgent! Wanted non smart TV

Mcirowave

💦 Sleep Spray from Books Peckham 

I was first given this by my friend Elizabeth who bought it at Books Peckham, an excellent second hand bookshop in South London (highly recommended!) run by another old friend, Peter Willis. It’s homemade by a woman called Sophie and contains Lavender, Clary Sage, Majoram, Mugwort and Roman Chamomile. I realise this is quite a mysterious description but if you find yourself in London go to Books Peckham and it will be there. It makes a tour bus smell like home! And when you are staying in a different bed every night it offers a familiar and heady smell to fall asleep to.

👚 Yuhan Wang

A designer specialising in romantic, funny, slouchy, pre raphaelite cabbage leaf clothes. If you want to look like a grumpy baby in a long christening gown and at the same time a medieval vision emerging from a lake with some pond weed trailing then this is for you. I hope I can own some one day. At the moment they’re a little out of my league financially speaking ;) but for now I’m ok to enjoy them with my eyes only. But the need is great. I think they’re the most beautiful clothes. 

Follow Florence and Dry Cleaning on Instagram

Listen to Dry Cleaning on Spotify

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