IMAGINE a pop record structured around four operatic movements with arrangements by the Pulitzer Prize-winning classical composer Caroline Shaw. On top of Spanish vocals, add 12 languages. Then immerse each song in female mysticism (including Sts Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Ávila) and the writings of Simone Weil. Invite Bjork to sing about “divine intervention”, and sample Patti Smith from an obscure 1976 interview, urging artists to push beyond convention: “One door isn’t enough. A million doors aren’t enough. You have to go beyond.”
Welcome to Lux (Latin for light) by Rosalía Vila Tobella, known mononymously as Rosalía. In The Guardian, she confessed: “I’m tiring of seeing people referencing celebrities. . . I’m really much more excited about saints.” If she wasn’t a pop star, she “would be in college trying to study theology or philosophy”. In November, she had a halo dyed into her hair. At 19, she walked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago alone: “I pray every night before I fall asleep.” Her Roman Catholic grandmother would take her to church when she was a child. She is a fan of St Matthew’s Gospel and counts St Joan of Arc, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone as “irreverent women” who motivate her: “I celebrate women that are unapologetic.”
Her 2018 breakthrough album, El Mal Querer, was the basis of her thesis at the Catalonia College of Music, fusing flamenco with R&B, much to the Spanish media’s annoyance. Motomami (2022) demonstrated her willingness for reinvention, exploring Caribbean and Latin sounds (reggaeton, dembow). Lux is another change in direction, prompting debate about whether this record is classical music or not. It is no surprise that Bjork is an album collaborator. She recently congratulated Rosalía on “switching genre kung-fu style”.
She quotes Simone Weil — “Love is not consolation, it is light” — and cites Gravity and Grace as inspiration for the record. Rosalía reckons that she produced more than 95 per cent of Lux on her own: “It probably is the most demanding album I’ve ever tried to do.” It was made in Los Angeles, far from her Barcelona home, and for it she adopted an ascetic lifestyle: “To do something like this, there’s no other way.”
Rosalía’s Christ “cries diamonds”: “My king of anarchy / My favourite reckless star . . . How many punches were given to you / That should have been hugs?” (“My Christ Cries Diamonds”). In “Divinize”, influenced by St Teresa, she compares her vertebrae to rosary beads. “Relic” is a confession: “My heart has never been mine / I always give it away / Take a piece of me, keep it for when I’m gone.”
“Sauvignon Blanc”, another Teresa-influenced track, has her throwing away her grand piano and Jimmy Choos: “If I have you / I don’t need anything else.” “La Yugular” has shades of Julian of Norwich: “The sky is the thorn / A thorn occupies a continent / And a continent does not fit in Him / But He fits in my chest.” But just to ground us amid all this mysticism, there is still an ode to an ex-boyfriend who seriously screwed up (“La Perla”).
For Rosalía, “the beauty of art is putting things on the table, proposing questions and probably finding more questions than answers.”
Lux is released on the Columbia label. www.columbiarecords.com