Audiopile Review: Whenever a fiercely independent shop favourite makes the leap to a well known label, we can’t help but feel a bit of apprehension. Those concerns dissolve almost instantly after hearing the ambient tone poem that opens Maria Somerville’s 4AD debut, Luster. Coming six years after her previous album, the beloved All My People, this is the Irish artist’s most complete and cohesive work to date—a dreamy collection that distills the hazy atmosphere of her earlier recordings into something sharper and more immediately resonant. Drawing on the wistful grandeur of Cocteau Twins and the soft-focus melancholy of Slowdive, Luster feels right at home on a label with such a rich dream pop lineage. Somerville’s breathy, reverb-soaked vocals drift like fog over sparse drum machines and gentle, sun-kissed guitars that recall Nabihah Iqbal at her most luminous. But there are also touches of a Grouper-like heavenly mystique, drifting between patient, atmospheric-rock that evoke Suzanne Kraft’s recent work or the hyper-independent bedroom DIY of Jonnine. For those still lost in the fog of Clinic Stars’ dream world that we were so enamoured with last year, Luster offers her own reverie—softly glowing, quietly transportive, and utterly sublime.

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By the time Irish musician Maria Somerville started writing Luster, her landmark label debut for 4AD, she had lived away from her native Connemara for quite some time. Having grown up amongst the wild, mountainous terrain of Galway’s rural west coast, she later relocated to Dublin, where she patiently developed an atmospheric dream pop signature inspired by the landscape of her youth – a spellbinding sound world of gusting ambient electronics, ethereal guitar strums, sparse percussion, and hushed lyrical vignettes. In 2019, this culminated in All My People, a self-released LP steeped in reverb, nostalgia and a yearning for home that won praise from discerning press and listeners alike.

It was upon returning to Connemara, in a house near where she was raised overlooking one of the country’s largest lakes, Lough Corrib, that work commenced on the songs that would eventually become Luster, an album that illuminates Somerville’s music anew, pushing it forward in both sound and spirit. Where All My People conveyed memories and melancholic longing with misty slowcore balladry, these 12 tracks show us an artist who’s more assured in the path her life has taken, and the person she’s become in the process. As she sings in ‘Trip’ – “I can see more clearly than I could before. I know now wat’s true for me.”

Invigorated by her surroundings and emboldened by her community, Somerville found a renewed sense of creative energy upon returning to home soil. It provided “fertile ground” for free-flowing recording sessions in her small living room studio, where she stitched together demos that were then fleshed out with friends and collaborators, and later mixed by the renowned New York-based engineer Gabriel Schuman. Contributors included producers J. Colleran, Brendan Jenkinson and Diego Herrera (aka Suzanne Kraft), as well as Lankum’s Ian Lynch, whose uilleann pipe drones you can hear in ‘Violet’, and Margie Jean Lewis, whose violin bows reverberate through the ambient haze of ‘Flutter’. Sessions with musicians Henry Earnest and Finn Carraher McDonald (aka Nashpaints) helped “tie it all together”, while contributions from friends Roisin Berkley and Olan Monk enshrined the companionship they’ve shared since Somerville returned to Connemara.

Listeners have had a window into Somerville’s world every Monday and Tuesday morning since 2021 via her beloved Early Bird Show on NTS Radio, where her dawn chorus selections range from blissful ambient and shoegaze to traditional Irish folk songs. Since signing to 4AD that same year, Somerville has toured with her labelmates Dry Cleaning, and released two covers for the label’s 40th anniversary celebrations – taking on Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Kinky Love’ and Air Miami’s ‘Sea Bird’. With the release of Luster, she has signalled the arrival of a new era that will see her play around the world in 2025 accompanied by a live band. Rest assured though, no matter where Somerville goes, she’ll take a piece of home with her – a living, breathing, timeless essence you can sense in every note, as clear as the air by the Corrib.