British art rockers Dry Cleaning top bill in sold-out Pioneer Works show

By Vittoria Benzine

Post-punk and indie’s porous vanguard descended on the newly renovated, continually evolving Main Hall at Pioneer Works Thursday night, headlined by U.K. band Dry Cleaning with support from Spirit of the Beehive and Baltimore-born opener Nourished by Time.

Even the crowd, cool as the acts themselves, was all-out moshing by the evening’s end.

Dry Cleaning, a four-piece art rock outfit making waves, assembled the bill. They’re on a touring kick. In fall 2021 the band played the U.S. and Europe to promote their debut album “New Long Leg,” two years after their angular, guitarp-driven debut single “Magic of Meghan” pitted personal breakups alongside royal engagements, and helped get them signed by 4AD. Rough Trade awarded “New Long Leg” album of the year, and “Strong Feelings” off it featured in a Chanel haute couture runway show.

The band dodges genres, but they’re known best for the tart wit of frontwoman Florence Shaw’s acerbic sing-talking. “If you like this you may like/Weird, weird, weird, weird/You’re weird,” she taunts on the brooding “Liberty Log,” a seven-minute opus. Some tracks like “Driver’s Story” brood low and slow, but the bass line on “Hot Penny Day” flirts with funk.

Thursday’s show marked Dry Cleaning’s final U.S. engagement on their current tour, which launched last fall to support their second release, “Stumpwork,” praised by NME, the New York Times and more when it dropped in October. The band performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” last month, and in two weeks they’ll take their dry humor and drums back on tour across the pond again.

As with their second album, this latest tour by Dry Cleaning proves they’re learning to run a tight ship. Both supporting acts on their Pioneer Works finale left the crowd hyped for the next. Even independently, all three groups had chemistry — and some experience playing together.

Nourished by Time (Edwina Hay, courtesy Cultural Counsel)

Nourished by Time, a one-man act with the soul of three, took the stage as attendees filtered into the Main Hall’s towering one-room warehouse with wood accents. Songwriter Marcus Brown mixed his own tracks onstage, his rich voice spinning out heart wrenching half-memories, like the misspelled love notes from his latest dreamy single, “Catharsis.”

“Only got time for two songs, maybe three,” Brown said near the end of his 30 minute set, which could have gone on much longer. “Probably wastin’ a lot of time talking.” He and Dry Cleaning are building a synergy, too — they played to a packed crowd in Toronto weeks ago, on this tour.

But before Dry Cleaning’s set, the enigmatic Spirit of the Beehive, first formed around 2014 in Philadelphia, presented the packed room with the low-fi roar of their poetic nihilism. “We had an air of mystery because we didn’t get press,” vocalist and bassist Rivka Ravede has said. “You don’t know who I am because you never asked.” Spirit of the Beehive opened for Dry Cleaning in Philly the night before this show, months after returning from their own first tour across Europe.

Spirit of the Beehive (Edwina Hay, courtesy Cultural Counsel)

Attendees certainly seemed interested. By the time Spirit of the Beehive went on, I was watching from the Main Hall’s just-finished second-story terrace, which wraps half the rectangular room, with only one deadzone where beams block stage views. From there, anyone could see that practically no one was on their phones as Spirit performed “I Suck the Devil’s Cock,” a seven-minute suite off 2021’s “Entertainment, Death.”

The band seemed excited about the attention, too. It was hard to tell where they were serious or kidding in their scant conversations with the crowd. “We’re gonna skip to the last song,” the group said, and the crowd erupted in protest. Then they played several more, or so it seemed, the way one fuzzy melody seamlessly morphed into the next.

Dry Cleaning took the stage next, with Shaw in a white gown that perfectly suited whatever jewel tone the backline’s colorful light show flashed, alighting a phantom penumbra around her.

They started with “Kwenchy Cups,” a jangly track off “Stumpwork” that’s opened sets before, followed by crowd pleasers like their most-streamed song, the bouncy “Scratchcard Lanyard” and the similarly popular, upbeat and dreamy “Gary Ashby,” a song about a tortoise off their latest release. Drummer Nick Buxton switched to saxophone (an instrument we were told is named “Bruce”), Shaw picked up a tambourine and the crowd danced.

After “Leafy,” Shaw announced that they’d be playing more songs from “Stumpwork” all in a row. Dry Cleaning played straight through the five tracks that ensued, including “No Decent Shoes” and “Conservative Hell,” though Shaw’s showmanship itself feels conversational, if close to the chest. The beat of her accent — she was a drawing professor and lecturer before — paired with hand dancing, hair twirling, and expressions all transcended her constricted body language.

Dry Cleaning’s set ended two songs after “Magic of Meghan” — then, for real, with a tame encore.

Pioneer Works itself, meanwhile, is constantly evolving, receiving a long series of ongoing structural upgrades since arriving in Red Hook over a decade ago.

Last year they held performances at Red Hook Labs while renovations on Pioneer Street were underway. “That phase ended in September 2022 and PW reopened with an amazing main hall exhibition by Charles Atlas that featured performances by Laurie Anderson and Fennesz, among many others,” Pioneer Works’ director of music Justin Frye tells Brooklyn Magazine.

Pioneer Works sells out shows all the time, he says, but given their range of programming, that can mean “a 12 person class about DIY lenticulars” all the way to a concert for 1,500, “all of which are exciting, adventurous and experimental, just like this concert with Dry Cleaning.”