Listeners to Maria Somerville’s Early Bird Show on NTS will have noticed the sound of wind and sea as she announces the next track in her soft voice. The reason for this is her return to her native Connemara, on the rugged west coast of Ireland. Having already explored her longing for this region on her 2019 debut album, All My People, Luster is now a work entirely dedicated to returning home – to the place where she grew up, combined with a return to nature and to herself.
Wrapped in a dense fog of shoegaze, post-punk, and ambient, Luster repeatedly plays on the theme of loneliness. »Projections of you / In my head,« Somerville sings after the beautiful intro »Réalt,« which sets the tone for the album. The songs seem to be painted with watercolors: they run into each other, their contours often dissolving. And yet this delicacy contains an enormous power. Nature plays a central role – embedded in echoing vocals, numerous synthesizer veils and melancholy. All these facets nestle together to form a work that is so opaque, floating and full of depth that it defies immediate explanation. It requires the art of slowing down to immerse oneself in the combination of mysticism and reality.
