Rosalía Vila Tobell, also known mononymously as Rosalía, released “Lux,” her fourth studio album on Nov. 7. The grand, genre-bending album explores the themes of light and dark, self-transformation, divinity and feminine mystique, fusing orchestral arrangements with avant-garde opera and electronic music. Featuring 13 languages, the London Symphony Orchestra and a full chorus, “Lux” is a layered, ambitious album that rewards deep listening and pushes the boundaries of what a mainstream pop artist can create.
Before creating “Lux,” Rosalía studied at the Taller de Músics in Barcelona and then graduated from the Catalonia College of Music, where she studied Flamenco interpretation and singing in a highly selective program. Her years of rigorous study under maestro José Miguel Vizcaya instilled an academic, research-driven approach to music that she carried into her critically acclaimed album “Motomami” and now, “Lux.”
In “Lux,” Rosalía sings in her native languages Catalan and Spanish, as well as Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Portuguese, Sicilian and Ukrainian.
“I love to travel, I love to learn from other people. Why wouldn’t I try to learn another language and sing in another language, expanding how I can be a singer, musician, or artist?” Rosalía said in an interview with The New York Times. “The world is so connected.” She stated that the life and stories of a specific saint inspired lyrics in each language.
“It’s a lot of intuition and trying to be like, I’m going to just write and let’s see how these will sound in another language,” she said about writing in different languages. Much of her time was spent using Google Translate and working with professional translators or phoneticists. Her writing process was a “constant back and forth” that took a year.
“I just try to be a musician the best way I can and push in experimentation,” she said. “If that’s literally staying at home, just writing lyrics for a year — or waking up early, sleeping barely nothing to go to the studio and stay for 14 hours working on mixes and not even having them ever perfect enough — that’s what it is to me.”
“Lux” also incorporates many references to religion and God. “I think I’ve always felt a personal and spiritual connection with God… I feel that God has given me so much, the least I could do is dedicate an album to Him. It’s my way of giving back,” Rosalía said in an interview with Le Monde.
She noted that she was much more interested in mysticism and expressing her personal journey than following specific religious codes or themes in the album.
Rosalía also took inspiration from hagiographies and prominent female intellectuals like French philosopher Simone Weil, Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, Chris Kraus and polymath Hildegard of Bingen. Weil’s ideas on gravity, grace and spiritual quest inform the album’s orchestral sound. The album is split into four movements based on Weil’s work: Purity, Gravity, Grace and Farewell. Each movement corresponds to different sonic palettes and languages, hearkening back to classical music’s “movements,” self-contained sections of larger compositions. Together, they follow a spiritual trajectory, from innocence to struggle, enlightenment and finally release.
“Lux”’s inspirations and structure make it less of a conventional pop album and more of a work of long-form art. Rosalía understands how her album may be challenging for many to process and enjoy.
“I think that, the more that we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “Sometimes I’m able to . . . just [shut] everything down and [watch] a movie in a dark space . . . it’s so hard, but that’s why there has to be something that pulls us there.” She wanted to make an album that “pulls you to be focused for hopefully an hour where you’re just there . . . I know it’s a lot to ask.”
“Lux” has already received critical acclaim. It achieved a maximum average score of 98/100 points on Metacritic, based on six reviews. The Guardian, Rolling Stone and The Times all gave “Lux” their highest ratings. Julyssa Lopes of Rolling Stone praised the album as a “timeless, beautiful and heartbreaking work of art.” Will Hodgkinson of The Times called the album “a grand sonic cathedral in which familiar themes are approached in a profoundly traditional and surprisingly original way.”
Berghain, the album’s lead single featuring Björk and Yves Tumor that was released on Oct. 27, was praised as a thunderous, genre-defying and operatic piece, topping the Spanish Singles Chart in Spain and reaching No. 2 on the Billboard World Digital Song Sales chart in the U.S.
