“How do we move without stepping off the edge of the cliff?” ask Dublin alt-folk duo Lemoncello, as they explore how external pressures quietly shape personal relationships on their new album, Perfect Place.

QUIETLY SHAPING PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Lemoncello are Dublin-based alt-folk duo Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella and Perfect Place is their second album.  It follows the pair’s eponymous 2024 debut offering and comprises ten songs that explore how external pressures quietly shape personal relationships. 

Written and recorded over the two-year period that has lapsed since the appearance of the debut album, Perfect Place finds Laura and Claire introducing synthesisers and electronic percussion to their sound, to sit alongside their acoustic guitars, cello, piano and concertina.  The sum of parts locates a seldom-trodden piece of ground that lies somewhere between the ethereal ideals of Moya Brennan and the dystopian landscapes of Joy Division.

FOR THE BEYONCÉS IN THE ROOM…

As a mission statement, opening track Clear Eyes Open Ready does the trick.  The slowly-building crescendo of strings is a tad unsettling, yet somehow appropriate, before otherworldly voices kick in to get the reflective, insistent Articulate Animal – the later of the album’s two singles – underway.  The voices rotate and echo as pulsing electronic rhythms take hold and a pensive mood develops.  And, appropriately, the song is concluded by a wistful sigh…

Strummed acoustic guitars set a folkier scene for the slow-building At the Edge.  Laura and Claire harmonise nicely as they sing lyrics that explore the outer limits of their homes, their island, their lives and their very existence.  And, meanwhile, the sounds – and the intrigue they generate – grow and grow.

The wistful, endearing, Karaoke Night has been described as: “…the album’s most vulnerable moment… an empty strangeness found in the late-night glow of the streetlights,” and, once you’ve heard the song, that’s a description that makes perfect sense.  Laura’s voice is chillingly intimate as she sings: “The Beyoncés in the room – they all got behind me, dancing on the tables” as, behind her, the strings sweep and simmer.  And, as the song reaches its climax, an electronic rhythm marks the passage of time whilst Laura concludes: “It makes me realise I don’t know anything about time.  I just feel it coming, feel it passing, taking me over.”

AN ANTHEMIC STATEMENT

Lead single, Meet Me Halfway is, perhaps, the album’s focal point.  The track is something of an epic, with fingerpicked acoustic guitar and Claire’s vivid vocals at its centre.  Strings slowly make their presence felt as the girls deliver their dreamy message: “Meet me halfway; meet me anywhere else but where you’re standing: too far away from me/ close to me.”  They’re words that underwrite the album’s recurring theme: that strange modern feeling of being more connected than ever, yet somehow further apart.

More electronic sound rumbles along behind the folky, harmonious vocals of Tomorrow Nostalgia, another song with an overtly dreamy aspect.  And the pace – and the passion – pick up as the duo deliver the payoff “Crashing of dreams we never knew” line.

Perhaps my favourite sequence of the album is the folky pair of tracks, Unfinished Business and Misadventure.  With the former, the vivid, intimate vocals are backed by a pair of acoustic guitars and a celestial choir, with strings making a slow, stately entrance.  The latter grows from a contemplative mix of acoustic guitars, mellow strings and sweet harmonized vocals to become a grand, anthemic statement.

SENSE OF FINALITY

The girls’ voices are joined by faint birdsong for White Flag, a song that grows in intensity as it progresses, until Laura and Claire declare that they’re “Screaming it down as the bombs drop, holding my white flag, beating you to a pulp with it.”  It’s absorbing, and it’s thoroughly engaging.

It’s the album’s title track that provides a neat conclusion to Perfect Place.  The song’s lyrics explore the many forms that perfection could take in an ideal world, before repeated admissions that: “Life isn’t like that…”  The voices are resigned and withdrawn as swirling strings take centre stage; it all helps to create a sense of finality.

EDGE OF THE CLIFF

Speaking of the finished album, Laura and Claire say: “What we’re trying to get at on the album is how the pressure that exists on the outside is finding its way into our friendships and families – even our romantic relationships.  The effect of what is happening culturally is appearing in our really small interactions, even within ourselves.  How do we make the move without stepping on someone else, without stepping off the edge of the cliff?” 

That’s a fair question.

Lemoncello have just announced a run of Ireland and UK headline dates for September and October, and they’ll be making further live appearances throughout the summer, including slots at the Night & Day Festival, Deer Shed Festival and WOMAD.  Details can be found here.

Lemoncello: Website

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