Will You Do Me a Kindness

Nothing more distinctly showcases Merce Lemon’s exponential growth as an artist and storyteller, nor more adequately prepares us for new music to come, than “Will You Do Me A Kindness” – her first original music since 2020’s 'Moonth'. It follows a recent single-split alongside Colin Miller (MJ Lenderman) of Bonnie "Prince" Billy covers, 'I See a Darkness / Gulf Shores', and reshades the hue of her trajectory with a new, determined brilliance.

“The phrase ‘will you do me a kindness' came from a YouTube video Colin showed me while we were recording last spring,” says Lemon. “This song started with those words, and I built a story around it. Some of the imagery came from pictures Colin sent me of his home at Haw Creek - especially the collection of outdoor chairs that the storms often blow around in his front yard. I wanted to make a flip book of those images.”

It’s a song at once full of yearning and spite. It waxes and wanes in energy, as if fighting to decide whether to absorb or expel overwhelming melancholic feelings of solitude, ultimately always relenting to the weight; “Will you do me a kindness? / Point the sun right into my flesh / I want nothing left.”

An ace up the sleeve of a veteran card player, “Will You Do Me A Kindness” cements Lemon’s place within the contemporary canon of a burgeoning “countrygaze” scene, directing its irreverent bow toward even more earnest, exciting waters.