Maria Somerville – Luster

There’s a perfect place to listen to Luster. It’s probably just before sunrise, and the streetlamps are about to dim. It’s cold enough to see your breath, but the vapour quickly gets lost in the mist that surrounds you. The pavements are quiet, just you and your headphones. But the magic of Maria Somerville’s 4AD debut – worthy of all the lineage and history and cool that label evokes – is that as soon as you click play, it doesn’t really matter where you are. The gossamer synths of the sub-two-minute Réalt are a transportive, and then grounding, introduction to a finely constructed soundworld, a gateway to the Galway artist’s redefining of dreampop, goth, shoegaze and ambient swirl.

What makes Luster more than just perfectly executed homage are the canny updates Somerville makes to the inspirations and references she draws on, like stitching colour into this tapestry of blacks, whites and greys. Spring is the apotheosis of this: breakbeats and autotuned vocals twist the more familiar reverberations of its guitars into a slowcore take on hyperpop. The wordless interstitial Flutter is abstract and freeform, its processed violin combining with cranked up electronics into a great surge, but Somerville can just as easily channel that spirit of experimentation into a perfect pop song like all her forebears.

Listen to: Garden, Spring, Violet