Maria Somerville + Olan Monk
Friday, 19 June, 20:30, Áras Éanna
Tickets €30/25
(MS photographed by Cáit Fahy, OM by Charlie Doherty)
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 soundworld 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 what’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 label mates 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 signaled 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.
Olan Monk is a musician, performer, and writer from Conamara, Ireland.
Their second album, Songs for Nothing, is out now on AD 93.
Written after Monk’s return to Ireland’s west coast, the record draws from sean-nós singing and Sinéad O’Connor’s confessional lyricism, blending Irish tradition with experimental gothic art rock. Through shifting textures of shoegaze, cloud rap, and slow airs, the album evokes Conamara’s rugged landscape and a deep sense of place. Featuring contributions from Maria Somerville, Michael Speers, Dylan Kerr, and others, Songs for Nothing reimagines Irish song traditions with raw, heartfelt intensity. Monk dedicates it “to Conamara and all who have called it home.”
Their practice involves experimental and popular songwriting, performing as a solo act and in collaboration with other musicians, including recordings and performances with Actress, Ashley Paul, Elvin Brandhi, James K, Maria Somerville, Michael Speers, Moin, Princ€ss and Shampain. They co-founded C.A.N.V.A.S. with Lugh O’Neill as an events series and record label, established in 2018 to give collective agency to an increasingly dispersed community of artists.
Past releases include Love/Dead (2020) and Auto Life (2021) on C.A.N.V.A.S. and Dubplate 08 (2022) on AD 93. They contributed the single ‘Surf’ to Scenic Route’s The Road Less Travelled Vol. 2 compilation (2024) and feature on the single ‘Guess It’s Wrecked’ from Moin’s third album You Never End (2024), released on AD 93. Past performances include appearances at Rewire, The Hague; Aiséirí in Leisureland, Galway; National Concert Hall, Dublin; the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast; cafe OTO, London; Barbican Hall, London; Institute for Contemporary Art, London; PAF Olomouc; EOS crossings, Frankfurt and throughout Ireland, England and continental Europe.