A love letter to the Cleaners From Venus
Rambling about my favourite musical discovery of the year, complete with a beginner's guide playlist at the end.
Earlier this year, I attended a gig on my own for the first time at the Enmore Theatre. It’s actually not all that bad once you get past the initial bouts of self-consciousness. As soon as the support or the main act comes on stage, all eyes are on them and you can sit back (or rather, stand) and let them entertain you for the next ninety minutes.
But what they don’t tell you about going to gigs solo is that the intervals in between acts are absolutely excruciating. There’s no one to talk to. You can’t go to the bar and get a beer if you want to keep your place in the crowd. Your legs are getting sore from standing for ages. What’s a concertgoer to do?
Whilst I was contemplating all of these things as I waited for the support act to come on, I was struck by the music that the Enmore was playing over the PA. The majority of songs were typical indie cuts, most likely to appease the Doc Marten-wearing audience that had trekked out to see the show that evening. But I was captivated by the song that was playing at that moment. I’d never heard it before, yet it sounded exactly like the sort of thing I enjoyed listening to: a sweet, cheerful melody with guitars so jangly that it could have been an advert for Rickenbacker.
Using my phone, I checked to see what the song was. It was ‘I Can’t Stop (Holding On)’ by the Cleaners From Venus. Immediately adding it to my playlist, I was unaware that I had just begun a passionate love affair with an obscure lofi pop artist from the eighties.
The Cleaners From Venus has had an unfixed lineup over the years, but its one constant is English singer-songwriter, poet, columnist and author Martin Newell. Hailing from Wivenhoe, Essex, Newell has been a huge proponent in the DIY music movement: the majority of the Cleaners’ music was distributed on cassette to locals and fanzines back in the day. Newell is also practically averse to using a proper studio, preferring to employ a four-track recorder within the comfort of his own home instead. In 2014, their back catalogue was reissued on vinyl, but it’s still bloody hard to find their stuff in stores.
Upon getting into the Cleaners From Venus, I realised that the main hurdle would be finding somewhere to start. The Cleaners may have put out their first release in 1980, but they’ve been incredibly prolific since then and Newell continues to release music to this day. Even he doesn’t know the exact number of albums he’s put out - a documentary filmmaker once told him that his discography was about twice as long as he’d estimated.
However, following some song recommendations from people on Tumblr (yes, I still use Tumblr in the year of our lord 2022 and you can pry it from my cold dead hands) and perusing guides on the internet, I began delving into the Cleaners’ back catalogue.
After falling hard for ‘I Can’t Stop (Holding On)’, I quickly fell for a song that was just as (if not more) jangly, appropriately titled ‘The Jangling Man’. Its ringing guitars and beautiful melody instantly captivated me as it has so many others - the song is one of Newell’s better known compositions on Spotify. The other recommendation I loved was the introspective ‘Drowning Butterflies’, a slow, gentle song that marked a change of pace from the other two upbeat Cleaners songs I knew.
What makes the Cleaners From Venus so appealing to me is that lofi sound that countless articles and writers have mentioned when talking about their music. Newell’s insistence on using a four-track and distributing everything on cassette lends his work an almost demo-like quality. For some, the hiss of a cassette tape is very familiar - the sound of a bygone era come to pass. For me, the slight hiss and tinny sound present on the Cleaners’ tracks elicits a sense of warmth. It feels homegrown. Sure, an album can sound great lathered in production, but Newell presents the bare bones of a song and it’s still beautiful.
One might argue that such a reluctance to use a proper studio and production techniques restricts Newell. But I believe that this restriction is in fact a gift in disguise. It forces him to become creative, to think outside the box and deliver something fresh. The fact that the Cleaners continue to put out brilliant things in spite of using outdated technology is a testament to Newell’s brilliance. Each album tells a story or at the very least captures a feeling, and it’s such a treat to be transported into a different world with only a few guitars, a drum machine, and Newell’s voice.
Not only that, I would also argue that the independent nature of the Cleaners From Venus frees them from restraints. They have full creative licence, and it adds to this ‘homemade’ feel that the use of the four-track already provides. You can sometimes hear Newell talking to the tape before he starts playing a song, or some external background noises coming from outside his house. I also love the hand drawn inserts of the original cassette tapes, complete with messages such as: “If you have money, buy it, if you don’t, copy it. If you do copy it, write to us for a cover”. It’s these things that make the Cleaners’ output feel more personal and authentic.
The first Cleaners From Venus album I really loved was 1982’s Midnight Cleaners. It contains their best known track, ‘Only A Shadow’, probably due to the fact that MGMT covered it in 2011. But what appeals to me is the atmosphere that the album conjures. Dark and wistful, it’s perfect to listen to on a rainy day. My adoration for Midnight Cleaners quickly extended to 1986’s Living With Victoria Grey, and 1982’s On Any Normal Monday after that.
Each Cleaners album has one key thing in common: its songs are rich with vivid, multicoloured imagery. Poetry comes naturally to Martin Newell the way breathing does to others, and his lyrics tell stories that absorb the listener and whisk them away into another world. His work reminds me a lot of XTC’s Andy Partridge, my favourite songwriter (and who, coincidentally, produced Newell’s 1993 album The Greatest Living Englishman). Not only do they both possess a knack for wordplay and storytelling, but their songs are laced with an unmistakable Britishness that feels oddly comforting to me.
No other Cleaners From Venus song best exemplifies this than ‘Wivenhoe Bells II’, taken from Midnight Cleaners. To me, listening to that track feels like walking down a cobbled street in a sleepy English village. Children are playing, the church bells are ringing, and the locals are going about their day. I love how visceral it is. Similarly, ‘Summer In A Small Town’, off 1984’s Under Wartime Conditions, hums with the same underlying thread of Britishness. With lyrics that mention ‘the pub across the street’ and phrases like ‘lend us a pound coin’, even Newell’s vocal inflection sounds more English than usual.
The thing about these overtly English artists is that they often have a sixties influence in common, usually worn on their sleeve. Newell is no exception - the Cleaners From Venus track ‘Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me’ is essentially an attempt at squeezing in as many sixties references as possible within three minutes. But there is also a sense of joy to be derived from the simplicity of such sixties influences - The Kinks, The Who, The Beatles and others of that ilk. These artists produced singles that were short, but rang with sweet, catchy melodies. It’s clear from listening to the Cleaners’ output that these melodic sensibilities bled and continue to bleed into Newell’s compositions.
It’s the culmination of these factors - Newell’s knack for storytelling, unabashed Englishness, and the sweetness of sixties pop influences, all wrapped into a delightfully kitsch-sounding package - that make the Cleaners From Venus appeal to me. Their music hums with a warmth and nostalgia that no other artist has, because who else is going to record an entire album on a four-track?
‘I Can’t Stop (Holding On)’ was my most listened to song of 2022, according to Spotify Wrapped. Apparently I listened to it 173 times, so you judge me as you will. Not excluding ‘I Can’t Stop (Holding On)’, my Top Songs Of 2022 playlist included eight Cleaners From Venus tracks, with ‘The Jangling Man’ also being my fifth most streamed track of the year. It’s evident that Martin Newell has left a big musical footprint on my life this year, and I hope it continues to stay that way.
I’ve barely scratched the surface of the Cleaners’ discography, let alone the music Newell has recorded under other monikers or even his own name. The thought of continuing to discover new music from the Cleaners From Venus, both from their back catalogue and from Newell’s ongoing releases, excites me to no end. Listening to their music is like being wrapped in a warm blanket with a cup of tea in hand on a blustery winter’s day. In other words, a comfort.
