Maria Somerville is a singer-songwriter who grew up in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. She later relocated to Dublin to attend college and released her first LP, a hushed, ethereal collection of ambient pop songs called All My People, while living there. Her music drew inspiration from the landscape of her youth, and during the pandemic, she moved back to Connemara, settling into a house near where she was raised. While working on her wondrous, illuminating new album Luster, released via 4AD, she also started hosting the Early Bird Show every Monday and Tuesday morning on NTS Radio, and enlisted the help of artists including J. Colleran, Brendan Jenkinson, guitarist Olan Monk, and Lankum’s Ian Lynch. Tim Robinson, a Connemara-based cartographer, visual artist, and author who came up in our conversation, wrote: “Often when visitors ask me what they should see in this region I am at a loss. A curious hole in the ground? The memory of an old song about a drowning? Ultimately I have to tell them that this is a land without shortcuts.” Maria Somerville takes her time, remembering, finding direction, so that when words come up short, her music can still lead the way.
We caught up with Maria Somerville for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight series to talk about moving back to Connemara, the process behind Luster, her collaborators, and more.
How do you feel now that you’ve started playing the new songs live?
It feels quite cathartic, actually, to play the new songs. They take on new forms every night. There’s a vulnerability to releasing the music; even just releasing singles or song after song, it’s kind of like, “Okay,” and then you can stay hidden. But it’s ultimately so nice, and there’s been such nice audiences so far. It’s been quite emotional.
People have naturally traced a line between your two albums: a feeling of homesickness turning into a kind of homecoming. Listening to Luster makes me feel like that line is actually blurred – like some part of that longing is fulfilled, but there’s also something new created in its place. When you moved back to Connemara, how were things different than you expected? What were some things you appreciated not just about being there, but having grown up there?
That was really special for me. When you’re 17 or 18, you don’t really appreciate things; I just wanted to leave and be anonymous and explore. I met a lot of great people that were formative for music, but when I went back, the stillness and the pace of life were very important. With the people there, as an adult, I was able to be part of the community. Knowledge gets lost along the way, so I was picking up things that I wouldn’t in the city. I don’t necessarily know in terms of music, how to separate the two – personally, maybe subconsciously, how it affected what was coming through me.
Was there a different kind of anonymity in going back than what you sought in the city?
It’s different in Connemara, because there’s so much space, and the landscape – it’s not just buildings. I had a good group of friends as well who had moved back, who played on the record, like Olan Monk and Roisin Berkley. There’s other groups who are putting on shows. A lot of people in Ireland didn’t quite get the hang of learning Irish, so we have other friends who are kind of spreading that teaching. There were just things that we were doing while I was there, and it felt really good. There’s obviously older people in the community who I would have grown up with, but I also had some peers out there. I’m sorry, I feel like I’m not answering your questions properly. [laughs]
No, that’s something I picked up on, too – even though you may say it’s an inward-looking album, it doesn’t feel lonely to me. I’m curious how separated the process was between workshopping the songs on your own and fleshing them out with your collaborators.
Yeah, I demo everything myself. I would work on that for a long time and have lots of ideas floating that I then come back to and try and flesh out. I did a sound engineering course in Galway many years ago, so I had that basic recording set up as a foundation. It was fun for me being able to do it in Connemara rather than a studio because I got to engineer things like the harp or some of the guitars from my friend Henry Earnest on ‘Garden’. Then Olan, who lives not too far away, I would go to their house and do some sessions there. But it would be kind of after. And then some things stayed the same, like ‘Halo’ and ‘Carrib’ were pretty much the first take, The ‘Garden’ vocals are the demo that came out; I tried to rerecord it, but it didn’t happen. A lot of it is a mixture of my own recordings and stuff that I did with others.
In terms of establishing a routine and the music you were consuming, did hosting the Early Bird show on NTS feed into your songwriting process?
During the pandemic, it kept me connected in a way, so that was a nice anchor to have every Monday and Tuesday. Getting up at six is a nice part of the morning. I was exposed to so much music that there wasn’t really a break when I was also writing. I mean, some of the stuff on Luster is pretty Early Bird. Some of the stuff was written before, but I’m sure, subconsciously, there’s something in there from being exposed to and influenced by different sounds.
The more time I spend with Luster, the more I appreciate its flow and sequencing. It seems to almost follow the order in which the songs were written, even if they weren’t necessarily. How intuitive was putting together that flow?
There were actually quite a few different sequences. ‘Stonefly’ was always the last on the sequences before the final one. I’d always be happy to take collaborators’ advice on those things. But there was an instinct at the very end – I changed the whole sequencing. The two sides have different feelings and different tones and sounds and frequencies, maybe. But how to articulate that in a way that makes sense, I’m not sure.
In following that instinct, did you feel like the record encapsulated the wave of time in which you recorded the album, between 2021 and 2023?
Definitely, I feel like it’s a capsule of that period of writing and making and feeling and being.
The title, too, feels like the perfect capsule, and the way it appears on the album cover really sets the tone for it. I love that it’s a different texture on the actual physical copy. What was the thinking behind it?
I’m always leaning towards minimal artwork. The view from my window at home – there’s these beautiful rocks that the light shines off, whenever it was raining anyway. It felt like it also summed up the music and the place. But the artwork, I was working with Nicola Tirabasso, who does a lot for 4AD. He was just sending ideas and saw that font; I’d been asking for something hand-drawn, and that one just felt like it worked. I love the texture and the photo of the insert.
There are varying levels of clarity in your lyrics in terms of how they’re heard in the music. I’m curious how conscious you are about which words peak out in the mix and which drift into it more; ‘Halo’, for example, feels hazier to the point of wordlessness. I understand that intentionality is harder to articulate, but are there limits to what you feel comfortable expressing through language?
With ‘Halo’, it’s probably more similar to some of the tracks on All My People. From a production point of view, it was whatever served the song; I had somebody who was mixing who thought that it was good to clean up the vocals, but it was a purely creative production decision to keep it this way. I recorded it with all of these effects, and it just served the nature of the song, more so than ‘Violet’, I guess, or ‘Spring’. It’s important to hear and have the lyrics or the voice more upfront. But maybe there is something in me that I’m still uncomfortable with expressing certain deeper themes.
Is that something you’re conscious of when it’s just words on a page, before you weave a song around them?
I generally always start with guitar and voice; I wouldn’t start with words. So I’d start first with the guitar melody, and after I’ll work out the lyrics. It just depends on the style of song I’m writing. ‘Trip’ was obviously more of a ballad-y kind of tune. ‘Halo’ was drenched in reverb when I was demoing it. Generally just whatever happens from the start, it kinda ends up going that way. There’s always a magic in the first take that when I try to go back and change it, for certain songs, it doesn’t really work. Whereas things like ‘Projections’ – I’m indebted to people who worked on it with me, like Finn [Carraher McDonald] and Henry, because it evolved from the demo hugely. That was a nice part of the process with Luster – I could only take things to a certain stage, and it was brilliant to work with people to see where things could go.
One thing that makes the record not feel so insular, but rather inviting, is that you sing about everything that is inviting you to be a part of your surroundings, to dig through the core. That’s a thread that you draw across the album, seeing what’s hidden beneath the surface. What makes you curious about the ways the world is, not just not what it seems, but inexplicably more than that?
Maybe that’s one thing from spending more time in Connemara. I was definitely reading a lot John O’Donohue, The Invisible World, and those kinds of thresholds. I suppose it was just coming through me from being there and having time.
Is there a part of that perspective that you’ve carried over into your life now, especially as you take these songs on tour?
Just looking, you know, keeping your eyes open. Even if you’re in the city, you can still see something beautiful somewhere. I remember there was a line by this artist, Dorothy Cross, that lives in Connemara. She’s incredible, and there was a quote from her, which came from Joseph Beuys. She said, “To be of it, to be in it, not to be looking at it.” And they were talking about the bug and the earth. And she was saying, “I want to be in it – in it physically,” like, “I don’t want to just paint beautiful landscapes.” She finds things that are washed up in the sea, like shark skin, things that maybe people don’t find as interesting. I remember that stuck with me for a long time. I suppose taking your time – I was feeling that there. I’m trying to carry that. It’s definitely harder for us all on tour, to have that grounding. [laughs] But we’re trying.
I like that quote. There is a lot of into with this record – I guess that’s the yearning.
And it’s universal, I suppose. It’s not just about one specific place.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
