LEMONCELLO

Lemoncello’s second album Perfect Place is out now. I sat down with members Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella ahead of release day to chat about the writing and recording of it.

Perfect Place was written and recorded over two years. What was it like having that time to craft the album?

Laura: For us it felt like going straight in. The last album we released in 2024 [self-titled debut] but we recorded it in 2021 and we’d been writing it since like forever. So, to us, the two year turnaround was, in a way, the freshest we've ever felt.

Claire: In terms of the music still feeling very exciting and fresh, songs were still being written even as we were recording it. We’d a really brilliant time in the studio with the producer, Ruth O’ Mahony-Brady. She's an absolute legend. We recorded it over six months whenever we could get windows in with Ruth because she was touring with Sam Smith so it was busy times for her.

The title, Perfect Place. What can you tell me about it?

Laura: Well, it's one of the songs on the album [the last]. The song is like an acceptance of the fact that life is really the opposite of perfect and in that acceptance there's a realisation that “well, if it's not [perfect] for you and it's not [perfect] for me, then this is what we have so I suppose we work with this.” When Claire first put cello on the demo for that song and sent it to me I had a pen and paper and out of nowhere the album artwork image came to me in a drawing. It was like my hand was just sort of drawing the thing from somewhere else. I think the image on the front cover is exactly what the title means. It’s Claire and I on the cover but if they're just two characters say, they're tied together because they have to hold on for dear life to this structure that’s a balance and if one person lets go or abandons the other in not coming forth with some sort of compromise, or love -

Claire: - or compassion -

Laura: - both of them will fall. I think that's a lot of what this album is about. At the moment I feel like we're so divided as people. It's so hard to find common ground and for good reason because there are some really bad things happening. I think the album is an acceptance that all we have to work with is this really precarious, unstable, pretty scary place. Recognising that it’s the only place we have and making it the perfect place.

I can’t get the lyric “to be so connected / and yet so disconnected” from the first single, ‘Meet Me Half Way’, out of my head. What inspired it?

Laura: I'm not sure so much exactly what inspired it but I think it's just feeling like there's so many amazing things that came with social media, like I could contact anyone but it's crazy that that is the way the world works now. We're so close to each other because of that yet it's almost like we don't have enough space for ourselves within that, or something. We’re within too close quarters, maybe.

Claire: Exactly, you could get in contact with anyone but we feel more disjointed as people than we've ever felt even though, really, we should be able to align on everything because we can talk so freely and openly and share ideas but it’s creating a more divisive world than we've ever seen. [These were Claire’s parting words as she had to leave. Laura and I kept chatting.]

Laura: These problems, we talk about them on a huge scale but actually they exist in the most intimate relationships and I think that’s maybe where the lines of the songs all come from, close relationships. But also they zoom out to the overall feeling of human beings right now and how it's very difficult for them to connect. It’s pretty sad and scary that people can think so wildly differently about things, that people can be so out of touch with each other, especially once people get to a certain level of social status and can't connect to the real problems of working class people. That, I think, is problematic and sad.

I read that you wanted to get more to the heart of things on Perfect Place. What was it like adopting that approach to songwriting?

Laura: Really scary [laughs]. But songwriting is always a bit scary because it's really vulnerable and I respect it a lot, you know. With this album I just really wanted to hone the craft a bit and get to the heart of things. Sometimes that means being really abstract because sometimes the subconscious, even the dream world and the images that come up there, can be a lot clearer. The abstract can be a lot clearer in feeling than the conscious, thinking mind. I think in the past I didn't trust myself as much. I kind of wrote with one eye open, one eye closed and eventually I'd be like “yeah, that's done now.” I knew that there was an extra length to go but I probably didn't trust that if I went that extra length that I'd get there. So, I think this time I just went that extra length and sometimes that meant just being really, really honest. I think it paid off with the songs. I’m happier with them than I have been with other stuff.

You leaned into more experimental sounds like synths and electronic percussion on Perfect Place. What was that like?

Laura: That was really, really fun. Claire did a lot of work teaching herself Logic [digital music creation software], and I tried as well. We did a lot of demos before we went into the studio with Ruth and a more digital sound came to the album because we were layering and finding weird sounds for things and using more synths and computerised percussion. Ruth has so much experience with that stuff. We were in really good hands when we brought our vision to her. We sent her the demos and she really got it. She listened to them and was like, “I think you guys have an album already.” I think Ruth really transformed the record, she just held it so well.

Are you looking forward to playing the new songs live?

Laura: Yeah! We have a lot to do to bring this album to the stage. We just have to get that right so we’ll take some time with it. I think it's going to be theatrical. I love that kind of thing so I'm really excited to give that a go.

Lastly, what are the feelings ahead of release day?

Laura: I think we're just excited really. I think we're definitely more excited about this album than we have been about other things. I feel like we've been working together for such a long time now and building confidence together as artists. I think this album is kind of what we’ve wanted to do from the beginning but we’re only arriving at it now. The work is done, it's only celebration now really. We're already delighted with it so now we just let it go and whatever happens, happens. 

Lemoncello’s brilliant album Perfect Place is out now.