Spanish pop superstar, Rosalia Vila Tobella, whose first 2 albums were released while she was still in music school updated flamenco for the hip-hop era on El Mal Querer and shifted towards art-pop-reggateon fusion on Motomami. Her fourth studio album, LUX is a whole different animal. Recorded alongside the London Symphony Orchestra and with a helping-hand from arrangers, Angélica Negrón and Caroline Shaw. composers, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, producers, Noah Goldstein, David Rodríguez and Dylan Wiggins. LUX coined a new form of avant-pop, by blending reggaeton and flamenco with orchestral and classical instrumentation with a touch of neoclassical electronic flavour. The album is partially conceptual with a tracklist divided into four movements, each dedicated to a different saint. exploring lyrical themes of feminism, spirituality and religion.
Sexo, Violencia y Llantas heralds the albumn with an orchestral overture that leads into Reliquia, a naive baroque pop under static strings that ends with a short Dubstep section (via breakcore veteran, Venetian Snares), but really a showcase of her ever-expressive singing. Her elastic vocals spiral like a renaissance opera under dissonant violin scratches on the bustling and intense Divinize which packs an exhilarating momentum. Porcelana is an innovative fusion of flamenco, trendy trap-infused reggaeton and gothic neoclassicism, married together by dark erotica. Mio Criste Piange Diamanté is a baroque-folk ballad a la Joanna Newsom before ending with operatic pomp, closing off the first section of the album.
The second movement opens with the majestic operetta Berghain (featuring vocal contributions from Bjork and Yves Tumor) before the dainty folk-pop La Perla, the free form vocal tour-de-force Mundo Nuevo and the bouncing flamenco, De Madruga, courtesy of Pharell Williams’ production. Overall, not as substantive.
The third movement contains 3 relatively straightforward ballads: the short and danceable tango Dios es un Stalker, with ridiculous lyrics, the baroque and yearning La Yugular, which contains Arabic-language singing and the dramatic starlit ballad Sauvignon Blanc.
The final movement opens with the epic flamenco atmosphere of La Rumba del Perdon with an acrobatic vocal performance followed by the two mot stripped-back tracks, Memorial featuring Carminho and Magnolias which glides out on a religious hymn.
The album is firstly an incredible technical feat on the singing and production side. Secondly, it is thematic and narrative work that harnesses the power of concert music to explore the divine. However, the first movement is by far the most powerful and the album loses momentum before it finds its conclusion.. The last three sections are entertaining and emotional (courtesy mainly of her singing) but less innovative, eschewing the production tricks that gave impetus to the opening quadrant. Nonetheless, the album flows narratively from the schizophrenic, spiritual chaos to calm and mystical acceptance by the end.
The physical version of the album contains several extra tracks that are generally more generic and do not match the epic and religious atmosphere.
Released: 7 November 2025
Label: Air Studios
Losing My Edge Rating: 7/10
Best Tracks: Divinize, Porcelana, La Yugular