Today, Irish musician Maria Somerville announces details of her forthcoming second album and debut project on 4AD, Luster, due for release on 25th April.
+ Pre-order from 4AD on limited clear LP with bonus 7″ and CD here +
+ Pre-order very limited white label pressing on Bandcamp here +
+ Pre-order and pre-save on all platforms here +
In celebration of the announcement, Somerville has also shared the album’s second single, ‘Garden’, produced by Diego Herrera, aka Suzanne Kraft. The transportive track sinks her emotive siren-esque vocal stylings into a whirring, all-consuming merger of soaring feedback, airy percussion, and nostalgic guitar chords reminiscent of classic 4AD. Its release is also accompanied by a music video directed by Anna Heisterkamp.
+ Listen to ‘Garden’ on all streaming services here +
Maria Somerville – Luster
4AD0755
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
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.
Late last year, Somerville introduced Luster with her first new single in three years, ‘Projections’, a wistful and romantic shoegaze track drenched in longing via fuzzed-out bass and strummed guitar, and carried by Somerville’s hypnotic and tranquil vocal stylings. Both new tracks point toward the upcoming project’s haunting tranquillity and lush sonic backdrop.
This Spring Maria Somerville will tour the UK, Ireland, Europe and the US. All dates are on-sale on Friday, and listed in full below. The run includes a London headline show at the ICA, and debut North American shows in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
April 2025
4th – Rewire Festival, The Hague, The Netherlands
15th – Coughlans, Cork, Ireland
16th – Dolans, Limerick, Ireland
17th – Black Box, Belfast, UK
18th – Button Factory, Dublin, Ireland
19th – Flying Duck, Glashow, UK
20th – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, UK
22nd – White Hotel, Manchester, UK
23rd – Headrow House, Leeds, UK
24th – Strange Brew, Bristol, UK
25th – Green Store Door, Brighton, UK
29th – Botanique, Brussels, Belgium
May
2nd – Berghain Kantine, Berlin, Germany
4th – Alice, Copenhagen, Denmark
6th – Voxhall, Aarhus, Denmark
7th – MS Stubnitz, Hamburg, Germany
10th – ICA, London, UK
16th – The Thing in the Spring, Keene, NH, US
17th – Public Records, Brookyn NY, US
20th – Sunset, Seattle WA, US
21st – Gray Area, San Francisco CA, US
22nd – Zebulon, Los Angeles CA, US
June
5th – 7th – Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Spain