Nell Mescal on the “magical” experience of making new EP ‘The Closest We’ll Get’

If you’ve found yourself in a North London park over the last few months and been convinced that you might have seen Nell Mescal hugging a tree, it turns out your eyes very much aren’t deceiving you.

“It’s very peaceful, but I won’t be telling you *which* park I go to. I need to keep that to myself,” the Irish singer grins.

It’s one of the dying days of Summer and we fittingly find Mescal in The Faltering Fallback, one of North London’s premium Irish boozers and a regular haunt for the singer since she moved to the capital several years ago to start a musical rise which RS UK has witnessed from the very start, and one which makes you understand why being at one with nature might come in handy.

It began back in 2022 when she released ‘Graduating‘, which told of the singer’s challenges which led to her dropping out of school. 2023, meanwhile, saw Mescal drop her debut EP Can I Miss It for a Minute?, which saw songs like such as the emotionally wrought ‘July’ being paired against almighty indie-pop bangers such as ‘Killing Time’.

But it’s on her latest EP The Closest We’ll Get where Mescal comes into her own like never before. It’s her first release since signing to Atlantic Records and a sprinkling of star power comes courtesy of Grammy-nominated producer Philip Weinrobe and – a personal hero of Mescal’s – Adrienne Lenker.

“It was an amazing experience and one that was really changed the way we work,” Mescal explains.

Part of that, she explains, came from the fact that Weinrobe would work diligently between the hours of 10am-6PM on the EP and once those hours were elapsed, a day’s work was done. She says that working with Weinrobe felt like a “dream”, but it should also be noted that Weinrobe was preparing to pack up his upstate New York studio, Sugar Mountain, and head to pastures new. Such was the impact of Mescal’s music upon Weinrobe that he stayed around long enough for this EP to be the final project made at Sugar Mountain.

“It was just the most magical experience,” Mescal beams.

Give the EP a single listen and you’ll understand what Weinrobe saw in the songs. Mescal tells me that the title track is a heart-rending listen, but there’s beauty to be found in the way she discusses situation-ships and the fizzling out of half relationships. “But if I’m only your half-drunk, sometime lover, Then I guess that’s more than nothing,” comes her emotional revelation.

Similarly, there’s a symmetry of sorts to be found in the searing ‘Middleman’, which she wrote it about a relationship she found herself in several years ago. It was only upon revisiting it for these sessions Mescal she realised that the person being addressed in the song, the one who needed to make bold decisions, was herself.

It’s heady stuff, Mescal explains, but it helps she’s found a pocket of North London where she lives with her brother Donnacha, a force of much-needed levity, she explains, and her A-List brother Paul. Though understandably reluctant to be drawn on the latter, she *does* tell RS UK that she’s been writing music with the actor, partly stemming from his need to inhibit the mindset of one of the greatest songwriters in history (Paul McCartney) for Sam Mendes’ Beatles biopics.

But the bottom line for Mescal on this EP, ultimately, is that it marks the rise of a star who can lift your heart and break it within the next couple of minutes. With a rising online fan base behind her too and a sold out UK tour, it’s an exciting next chapter for a truly unique voice.