Maria Somerville – Luster | Album Review
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4AD
It’s not often that I find myself spellbound. I expect so much of myself and my life that I’m constantly moving, churning away, always attempting to get my boulder to the hilltop. Even when I’m motionless, my mind is picking up where my body left off, working a double on the factory line of anxiety and self-consciousness, never letting tranquility in.
As a music fan, this is akin to a viral infection that plagues me, keeping me from taking a beat to absorb new material. If I'm not giving up on songs mere seconds in, then I’m forcing myself to get through entire records while not being in the proper frame of mind. I’m penalizing the music for not meeting me where I am when it should be the other way around. I need to accept the work for what it is.
This is where the new Maria Somerville album, Luster, comes in. A thirty-eight-minute sound bath of bliss, Luster is an astounding achievement from the Irish musician. On her debut for 4AD, Somerville challenges the listener to embrace presence through her meditations on nature, personhood, and longing. In her lyrics, she mentions swimming in caves, walking through fields, and even long-forgotten mythical heroes in a way that suggests her music is attempting to reach beyond the veil for something that can’t be seen or might be lost in time. On the standout track, “Garden,” Somerville grapples with her longing for someone or something but is seemingly never able to speak it into existence.
Sonically, Somerville’s songs fall on the dream side of dream pop. Many of the tracks are enveloped in an electric haze that is befitting of her native Connemara along the western coast of Ireland. What’s most impressive is that she manages to avoid the monotonous one-noteness that often befalls dream pop acts. Each song contains a distinct element that allows it to slip into your mind long after you’ve stopped listening. On “Garden,” undulating drums pulse behind Somerville’s shrouded vocals, whereas tracks like “Stonefly” and “Violet” find her embracing elements of pop and shoegaze.
All of this connects with what Somerville is trying to say on Luster. There’s a longing to make sense of time. Can we truly let go of the past, or are we doomed to be trapped in a prison of memory? On “Projections,” she tries to make sense of a lost relationship and what could have been done differently, all while knowing that what’s done is done. Other tracks like “Corrib,” “Halo,” and “Spring” find Somerville sifting through her personal sands of time as she grapples with whether or not she can or even wants to let go of her past pains.
For many, I can imagine that deciphering meaning in these lyrics would be a frustrating task, as Somerville writes in a way that can come across as withholding, details left out, moments distilled into sapphic fragments. But I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s this constant demand to decode and establish meaning that makes today’s existence so fraught with exhaustion. We spend every waking minute attempting to determine meaning as we hamster wheel ourselves into the grave. Ferris Bueller was right, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Connor lives in the Bay Area, where he teaches English at a community college. Free Palestine.
