Lemoncello produce a fine mist that floats over their homeland, Ireland, and drifts across the water, reflecting their world and the wider world. “At the edge of the weather,” they sing, representative of their message of living just ahead of your past. Laura Quirke on lead vocals and guitar, and Claire Kinsella on cello and backing vocals, have expanded their sonic ambitions from their 2024 eponymous debut. With new self-assurance, Perfect Place shines through.
Lemoncello’s first release was met with well-earned praise. Low-key, mostly guitar- and voice-based, and all-analogue-recorded, it introduced their song-story style. The ten songs and 45 minutes of Perfect Place expand this format into a space that sits comfortably at the crossroads of folk, ambient, and even neoclassical. I was reminded of the recent release,Inventions,by Natalia Tsupryk and Angus MacRae, with its vaguely Celtic melodies and atmospheric soundscapes. Ruth O’Mahony Brady, who co-produced along with the pair, adds subtle piano textures and synth orchestrations. Filling out the sound are Joseph Doyle on bass, Lorcan Byrne on drums, Cormac Begley on concertina, and Rita Perry and Peter Broderick on additional vocals.
The songs demonstrate masterful storytelling. “Karaoke Night” speaks to anyone who thinks they are living their life for someone else. Set in a Los Angeles bar, the story follows the narrator as they enjoy a night out with a new love, drinking and singing. Though she wryly notices, while singing “Irreplaceable”, calling herself Dorothy, that “you’re not in Dublin anymore” while “the Beyoncés in the room all got behind me”. As the song progresses, “Dorothy” steps outside herself to look, and her inner self asks, “Why are you wearing all those layers?” Then the song peels back more layers like a good short story.
Similarly, in “Misadventure”, the speaker begins optimistically. “Sitting out on the steps in the sun,” sings Quirke in her characteristic conversational style, accompanied by her acoustic guitar. She tells of a period after losing something not specified. “Trying to be a sun-hat person for a while” is one of her coping mechanisms. However, the breeziness quickly evaporates as the poetic second subject explores loneliness and belonging, using the repeated image of “the suitcases turning” at an airport somewhere, we can assume. The words are sung with the cadences and pregnant pauses of master storytellers around a fire.
In contrast to the ambitious narrative arcs of the lyrics, the record’s memorable musicality is achieved from very limited materials. The melodies are not stocked with conventional hooks, yet they have become very earwormy for me. The tune for “Meet Me Half Way”, for example, has been especially hard to shake. So too for “Unfinished Business”, which relies on just two chords to carry the musical mail. Building up the sound, Kinsella’s ever-present cello is augmented by rich choral and synth parts. Simple ABA song structures, or even AAA form, are only sometimes enlivened by pop music’s repeated choruses. Instead, as on “White Flag”, some songs build to an epic coda demonstrating the songwriters’ craft.
The recording is a testament to a seamless musical partnership. As in Lemoncello’s debut, the core sound of their two pure voices is accompanied by an acoustic guitar embellished with intertwining cello lines. In Kinsella’s hands, the cello creates whole string sections along with a variety of other, more organic sounds. Her supporting vocals harmonize in surprising places and match the lead voice’s timbre with a naturalness reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel or, to choose an example from this century, the Corrs. Meanwhile, no matter what is going on around her, Quirke always sounds like she is singing only to you.
Having enjoyed their debut, I was surprised by the depth and sophistication of their second outing, musically, but especially lyrically. With Perfect Place, Lemoncello have achieved a feat of musical alchemy that should, must, bring them a wider audience. At this writing, they have scheduled tour dates across Ireland and the UK over the next few months.