Maria Somerville Conjures Echoes to Shore with "Luster" (4AD)

Maria Somerville by Cáit Fahey
Irish artist Maria Somerville’s album Luster unfolds with the subtle cool of morning dew upon the grass. Marking her debut on the venerated 4AD, the album walks its own level path – a crystalline dream suffused with spectral texture.
Stretched across twelve tracks, Luster takes deep inspiration from Somerville’s homecoming to the lands of Connemara. Its lyrical imagery is viscous, and at times nebulous—harkening back to natural wonders at every scale—but Somerville cleverly adapts these narratives. “This world will break your heart / I know not to know now,” she sagely opines on the hushed “Corrib” (named for County Galway’s freshwater lake). Somerville sinks into “Violet” with another limber tableau: “Hearts and mind, the sea of change / Veils of vision, offshore birds.” Though thematically anchored to the musician’s surroundings, the album breathes musings fit for any terrain.
Luster also unveils a rich sonic mosaic, elevating the shoegaze and dream-pop genres with gratifying flourishes. Consider the steady drone of “Violet,” accented with uilleann pipe by Ian Lynch, or the ambient shrill of the synth on “Stonefly” as it rises to a crescendo. “Spring,” the last single off the album, swells with an orchestral breathiness akin to Diamond Jubilee before hollowing to reveal Somerville’s shadowy vocals.
Somerville’s sophomore album is imbued with history, yet radiant with growth. Symbiotic in its sprawl, Luster beckons to be witnessed.
Luster
out now via 4AD

1. Réalt
2. Projections
3. Garden
4. Corrib
5. Halo
6. Spring
7. Stonefly
8. Flutter
9. Trip
10. Violet
11. Up
12. October Moon
Artwork by Nicola Tirabasso and Alison Fielding
Thanks to Jack Colleran, Henry Earnest, Finn Carraher Mc Donald, Margie Jean Lewis, Róisin Berkley, Luka Seifert, Diego Herrera, and Olan Monk