Lavelle studied at the
Royal College of Music in
London. Throughout the early to mid-eighties she busked in the city, often outside
Kensington Tube Station and
Covent Garden, playing
baroque music with Anne Stephenson and
Virginia Astley (or Virginia Hewes; sources are confused) in a group called
Humouresque. She was spotted by
Frankie Gavin, a member of Ireland's
De Dannan band, who asked her to join. She was part of the band up to the early nineties, alongside
Mary Black and
Dolores Keane. In 1992, she contributed vocals and cello to the track "Home of the Whale" on the
Massive Attack EP
Hymn of the Big Wheel. Producer
William Orbit liked it, contacted her, and eventually produced, and mixed, her debut solo album,
Spirit, in 1995. Her version of the song "Moorlough Shore" was used for the introduction to
Paul Haggis's critically acclaimed crime drama
EZ Streets. This brought her greater notice in the areas of film and television. Also in 1995, she began recording with Canadian world music artist
Loreena McKennitt, recording and touring as part of McKennitt's band. A December 1999 article in
The Sunday Times reported that it was this album which drew
Madonna's attention and initiated the successful collaboration of William Orbit and Madonna. She produced two further albums,
Brilliant Midnight (2001), which, a year later, had three further tracks added in a reissue, and
A Distant Bell in (2004). Her "Home of the Whale" track (with Massive Attack) was featured in the 2000
Ewan McGregor/
Ashley Judd film,
Eye of the Beholder, and she also contributed her song
Anxiety to the soundtrack of the 2001
John Dahl movie
Roadkill (
Joyride in the US). She lives in
Tintagel in Cornwall. She was on Loreena McKennitt's Ancient Muse tour. In early 2013, Lavelle began work on a new collaborative project with singer/songwriter Andrew Bate. In 2016, she released an album titled
Secret Sky as one of a trio by the same name. The other members are
Brian Hughes and
Hugh Marsh. In 2023, Secret Sky released a second album,
Opium. ==Collaborations==