Lemoncello: "We were just trying to get beyond the box that we’ve grown out of"

“Let’s just see what happens,” Lemoncello sang on ‘Harsh Truths’, a track from their 2024 self-titled debut album. Looking back now, they feel it’s a lyric, and an ethos, that sums up the entire project.

“That was very much the first album’s vibe,” Claire Kinsella, the cello-wielding half of the duo, reflects. “I don’t think we knew we were making an album. If you haven’t made an album before, how do you know that you’re actually doing it? It was just something we were doing as we went along.”

Long before the release, the pair – with their compelling blend of sincerity and playful irreverence, forged between Carlow and Donegal – had already established themselves as key players in Dublin’s folk-adjacent music community, and a crucial force in independent Irish music at large, through extensive gigging, collaborations, and early EPs Stuck Upon The Staircase (2018) and Oil and Water (2020), which clocked up millions of streams.

Lemoncello, released via Claddagh Records, went on to score international praise and two nominations at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards, while also helping them land tours with the likes of Fionn Regan, Ye Vagabonds and Joshua Burnside. The album even earned a unique place in online sketch comedy lore, after a vinyl copy appeared in the background of a @veronika_iscool video (albeit on the floor, for some reason).

Now, two years on, they’ve returned with their follow-up, Perfect Place. Compared to their approach to their debut, they say it was “night and day,” with the duo entering into the new project with “a lot of intention, from the beginning” – exploring complex themes and a boldly expanded sonic world.

Co-producer Ruth O’Mahony Brady –  known for her work with the likes of Lisa O’Neill, Gorillaz, Glen Hansard and Sam Smith – played a key role in helping Lemoncello bring their vision to life, out in her Cabinteely studio.

“When she heard the demos, she knew exactly where to take them,” Laura Quirke remarks. “And everything she suggested was exactly where we had wanted to go with it. It was like finishing each other’s sentences. For that time we were recording, she sort of became a third member of the band – every decision was made between the three of us.”

They were also guided by a carefully curated playlist of references.

“Mitski was a reference for ‘Unfinished Business’,” Laura reveals. “There’s a turn in her song ‘Bug Like an Angel’, at a really important, cathartic moment, where a choir starts singing, and we wanted that kind of effect. We were also listening to choral arrangements in other songs, like Joni Mitchell’s ‘Rainy Night House’. That melody almost sounds like some sort of animal to me.

“I was also listening to Julee Cruise, who did the Twin Peaks theme,” she continues. “That comes in a little bit in ‘Perfect Place’, with the treatment of the guitar.”

“There was also a Joanna Newsom song, ‘Does Not Suffice’,” Claire adds. “It feels like you’re really safe the whole song, and then at the end it just throws you around the place, with these thrashing drums and piano. That would have been a reference for ‘White Flag’.”

As Laura notes, Perfect Place started off as an exploration of an inner “place between control and surrender.” But as they worked away – in the midst of global uncertainty and chaos – she felt it “zoomed out further from the self.”

“In the end, it became more about accepting precariousness, instability, dissonance, and the reality of life – accepting the situation that we’re living in, in the world, at the moment,” she resumes. “But also, those dissonances also exist within ourselves, and within our relationships with other people. So some of the songs are very specific and in the moment – but they’re also about looking outside and inside yourself at the same time.”

Credit: Cait Fahey

From the dramatic instrumental opener, ‘Clear Eyes Open Ready’, it’s clear a real spirit of adventure guided the project too – with the pair pushing beyond their organic folk roots, to incorporate synths and electronic elements across the album.

“I think we were just trying to get beyond the box that we’ve grown out of,” Laura remarks. “We really wanted to explore arrangements more, and experiment with different instruments – and not stick with just playing the guitar and the cello, and having to stand behind these two things. We could both sing, or not sing. I could maybe take the guitar away – like on ‘Karaoke Night’. We’ve done that live, and it was really fun, just being able to walk around.”

“And have your Beyoncé moment!” Claire laughs.

Perfect Place also differs from their debut in how it was recorded – opting to go digital this time, after recording Lemoncello to tape. While they still have a lot of love for the analogue world, Claire admits that, “in retrospect, it’s a crazy way to approach a first album.”

“The process of recording to tape can be restrictive – so it's like going, 'Okay, here are the parameters,'" she resumes. “At the same time, we learned so much from that, and we learned to really appreciate the place of everything in a song. It made us quite intentional about what goes on in an arrangement.

“But this one felt a lot more fun,” she adds. “Because we could just add stuff, and have more control.”

In addition to their work as Lemoncello, both members have been busy over the past few years with their own projects and collaborations. Laura, who has previously recorded with the likes of Alannah Thornburgh and Joshua Burnside, released her solo Something To Lose EP in December – while Claire has been playing on projects by Dermot Kennedy, Kingfishr and Junior Brother, as well as touring internationally as part of Jamie Duffy’s band. With their long-term friendship providing the foundation for Lemoncello, do Claire and Laura feel that individual work ultimately makes them stronger as a duo?

“I think it does, yeah,” Claire reflects. “It is such an intense thing, to be in a band with someone. It’s an unnatural amount of hanging out time! I’d say we hang out more than a lot of spouses in Ireland.”

“If not the world,” Laura nods, sagelike.

“And you have to be very mindful of that space,” Claire adds. “Other experiences coming into that is always a good thing – the same as individuals within any kind of relationship.”

Equally, any sort of restriction, as Laura points out, can be an opportunity for creativity.

“With Lemoncello, it’s creating through collaboration,” she says. “So Lemoncello in itself is a restriction, to work between ourselves on this project. Really amazing things can come from that pressure, between two people. It’s really valuable as well, to have to collaborate and discuss things. It’s good practice for life.

“But you also have to be able to express your creativity elsewhere, and learn from those different things,” she continues. “If you’re constantly going through the same thought-funnel, you get a distorted view of life, or a distorted view of the way you would otherwise create.

“So whatever Claire is doing with Junior Brother or Jamie Duffy, or whoever else, that all feeds into her own work, and her work with the band. And likewise with the other projects that I do. It’s all feeding the one thing.”

• Perfect Place is out now. Lemoncello play Cyprus Avenue, Cork (September 23); The Button Factory, Dublin (25); The Spirit Store, Dundalk (27); Róisín Dubh, Galway (30); Phil Grimes, Waterford (October 2); and The Limelight 1, Belfast (22). See their full list of dates here.