‘Slow Creature’ marks Perlee’s first body of work. The songs dig deep into the reality of our ever-present emotional lives. ‘Conditions To Thrive’, ‘Chain Of Coral’, ‘Charlie’s Song’ and ‘Feelings of Plenty’; connection, pain, longing and gratitude. The bones of this E.P. were recorded to tape at Analogue Catalogue studios in Newry early 2019 with renowned engineer Julie McLarnon (New Order, Lankum, The Vaselines). Perlee met Julie at a Dublin gig in 2018. She invited them to her studio and straight away it was a good fit. They recorded several tracks to tape and these releases are the fruits of that week.
Stereogum had this to say of Perlee’s first single off the EP, ‘Chain Of Coral’: ‘The duo’s melody weaves in and out of focus initially, like tips of flames moving in unpredictable yet still natural arcs. The song becomes entrancing…drawing you in with one flare, one faded hook, before encouraging you to get lost in its currents. It’s a sighing, beautiful composition.’ Read the full article here. (The duo recently changed the spelling of their name from Pearly to Perlee.) There are guest appearances on ‘Chain Of Coral’ from A.S. Fanning on bass and O Emperor’s Brendan Fennessy on drums. The track was mixed by A.S. Fanning in a studio in East Berlin which once served as a Stasi HQ before the wall came down.
‘Conditions To Thrive’, the third release from the ‘Slow Creature’ E.P’, is the last to be released but the first track on the EP. Like ‘Chain Of Coral’ it was mixed by A.S. Fanning in Berlin. Matt Ingram lent his incredible drumming skills to it (as he did for ‘Charlie’s Song’) and the overall effect is a drone led, Velvet Underground red-wine reverie, about life, love and loss.
‘Feelings Of Plenty’, in contrast the the rest of the tracks, was captured in a one-take live recording and is minimal in it’s production with one electric guitar and two voices and was mixed by Julie in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains. Saramai recalls, ‘We started playing ‘Feelings of Plenty’ in the live room, just warming up really and getting our sounds. The amp was in the room and everything. Suddenly the light on the mountains turned purple and there was a certain magic glow in the room. Julie quickly set up six mics around us, kind of like a photographer. That’s the recording you hear.’
In 2017 Cormac O’Keeffe and Saramai Leech moved to Berlin from the remote Irish countryside of Co. Meath. The fruits of gigging frequently and embedding themselves into the Berlin music scene are evidenced in their honed and unique songwriting. “Though we moved to Berlin with a trove of songs, the bulk of the EP was written after we arrived in Germany. The Berlin scene has pushed us in ways we don’t even fully realise yet. There’s been a great freedom in living in such a big city. Mostly it’s the space and time to experiment and the fact that you can gig often to different audiences.” says Cormac.
Live Dates postponed due to Covid 19 – Rescheduling – TBC
