“There’s a very contemporary tension within Lemoncello‘s latest single ‘Meet Me Halfway’,” we wrote back in February. “A complicated relationship between intimacy and distance. A sense of push and pull.” True to their nuanced, emotive brand of folk, the song saw Irish duo Laura Quirke (guitar/vocals) and Claire Kinsella (cello/vocals) create “a soundscape that’s spare yet loaded with latent feeling,” we continued. “As though the true weight of the track lies just outside of the frame. An atmosphere fitting for a song which explores how even though we’re now able to communicate more freely than ever before, we’re somehow as far apart as we’ve ever been.”
Lemoncello have now announced their brand new album Perfect Place, coming in May via Claddagh Records. The record has roots in a residency on the Skellig Islands off the southwest coast of Kerry, Quirke and Kinsella taking those ideas forward and working on them over a two year period, leading to what might be the pair’s most considered and emotionally daring songs to date. “In the past I think I’ve abandoned songs a little bit too soon,” as Quirke explains. “I hid behind flowery language instead of getting to the heart of the thing. With this album we wanted to express things that are difficult and messy. Sometimes to be clear emotionally you need to be abstract lyrically but you can’t be afraid to take everything off and just stand there completely vulnerable.”
Latest single ‘Articulate Animal’ suggests the entire release will be just as finely crafted and probing. A cello drone simmers just below the surface, the vocals delivering a single which repeats throughout the track. “Wish I could stop telling myself things.” Something like a mantra, a spell intended to cut to the quick of the self, hurdling over the rational part of the mind and sinking into the instinctive. As it progresses, the song blooms with subtle detail, but never moves too far from this core ideal. As though it is an act of careful effort, and something of a mission statement for an album determined to get the the real heart of things.
Watch the video below, directed by Saoirse Johnston Gaffey, produced by Billy Buckley with director of photography Leon Forristal:
Perfect Place will be released on the 8th May via Claddagh Records and you can pre-order it now. Lemoncello are heading out on an extensive tour across the UK in the coming months and you can find the list of dates below:
Wed 6 May – Glasgow, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Thu 7 May – Leeds, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Fri 8 May – The Jacaranda, Liverpool, UK (Album Launch Headline Show)
Sat 9 May – Stroud, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Sun 10 May – London, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Mon 11 May – Bristol, UK (Joshua Burnside support)
Tue 12 May – Theatreship, London, UK (Album Launch Headline Show)
29–31 May – Night & Day Festival, Roscommon, IE
24–26 July – Deer Shed Festival, UK
23–26 July – WOMAD Festival, UK