Founded over forty years ago by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, 4AD is easily one of the most iconic record labels operating today. From The Pixies to Big Thief, it’s impossible to imagine today’s musical landscape without the artists they championed. Despite its deep and varied discography, in my mind the label is synonymous with two things: its distinctive visual aesthetic and atmospheric, otherworldly sounds. Luster, the latest release from Irish musician Maria Somerville, feels right at home as the label’s most recent release. It’s an album that calls back to 4AD’s roots, acting as both a primer on and evolution of dream pop.
Listening to Luster literally feels like a walk through dream pop history. The echoing vocals and languid synthesizers of “Up” call back to the dreamscapes of Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise. “Halo” could easily be a Grouper outtake circa Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill. Other names flashed through my head throughout repeated listens: former labelmates like Cocteau Twins and Red House Painters, shoegaze legends like My Bloody Valentine, modern day chanteuses like Jessica Pratt. Its a succinct synthesis of the genre, summarizing forty years of innovations in forty minutes.
Somerville began writing Luster after moving home to Connemara, an area on the west coast of Ireland. The landscapes of the region, both physical and psychic, loom large throughout the album. Sometimes they impose themselves literally; although her voice often barely peeks through the instrumentation around it, many of the lyrics you catch reference open skies, bodies of water, even dirt. But this deeply rooted sense of place also feels embedded into the fiber of these songs. Chirping birds greet you in the album’s opening seconds. At various times I can almost feel dew on the ground in the early morning, mist swirling around me on a bluff, the sun hitting my on the face as the clouds clear. This deeply rooted sense of place elevates her music above a mere genre exercise; even at its most referential moments, that specificity shapes it into something all its own.