Maria Somerville’s ‘Luster’ is a remarkable album – a beautiful, thrilling, fascinating experience, one that matches the tranquil and the bucolic to emotional complexity. Sensually stunning, it feels unified but also hard to pin down; a record that muses on the uncanny, fuelled by sights experienced from the corner of your eye, there’s an apt halo of magic to what Maria Somerville has achieved here.

Her , ‘Luster’ follows the word-of-mouth success fostered by . There’s a big gap between projects, but listening to the results you’re struck by how much thought and technical expertise has gone into each note – perhaps Maria Somerville truly needed every hour of that six year process to create something as special as this.

Marked by vertiginous creative growth, the peaks here mirror the landscapes of the Corrib, in her native Connemara. Opener ‘Realt’ billows out of the speakers like audio perfume, both formless and curiously specific about the path it occupies. ‘Garden’ is anchored in place by the barbed electronic production, a nod to the album’s fleeting glimpses of underlying darkness; the symphonic ‘Halo’ offers heavenly perfection, its flowing sonics undulating as a spring brook.

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A record informed by rural settings, there’s also a real modernity to Maria Somerville’s work. While the transportive aspects take you out of time, she’s equally not beholden to any one tradition. Take the eerie, clattering neo-industrial aspects that frame ‘Spring’ – a song that neat crunches down into , helmed by Maria’s half-spoken vocal.