Luster
The Irish musician wrote her self-released debut album, 2019’s dreamy, reverb-drenched *All My People*, while living in Dublin and pining for her hometown of Connemara on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. Writing its follow-up, Maria Somerville returned to the rural landscapes of her youth, drawing inspiration from its wild terrain, its weather patterns and various bodies of water, and the Irish folk traditions still cherished by the locals. Between a pair of artist residencies on the nearby island of Inis Oírr, long conversations with her fisherman father, and home recording sessions with a small crew of new collaborators (Henry Earnest, Finn Carraher McDonald, Roisin Berkeley) emerged the ethereal songs of *Luster*, Somerville’s sophomore album and her 4AD debut. Wistful dream-pop numbers like “Garden” and “Projections” channel the woozy romance of Grouper, Mazzy Star, or Cocteau Twins, while evoking Somerville’s misty, windswept surroundings.
The Irish musician’s gossamer dream pop is both mythic and real, a wild and ancient landscape in which her own figure is just barely perceptible.
On her 4AD debut, Maria Somerville redefines dreampop, goth, shoegaze and more, stitching colour into a tapestry of blacks, whites and greys.
The Irish artist’s folk-inflected sound is both unnerving and alluring on her luxuriant second album
April 2025 releases include Oylegate, Ithaca, Tech Duinn, Luster and Burning Rome