Spanish singer-songwriter ROSALÍA released her fourth studio album “LUX” on November 7, 2025 via Columbia Records.
This marks her first album in three years since the 2022 album “MOTOMAMI”.
The album comprises 15 tracks (physical editions contain 18 tracks), which she recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra under the conducting of Daníel Bjarnason and the Escolania de Montserrat i Orfeó Català choir, featuring guest collaborations with Björk, Carminho, Estrella Morente, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Yahritza y su Esencia, and Yves Tumor. The record consists of four movements.
On the album, ROSALÍA sings in multiple languages, her native Spanish and Catalan, as well as English, Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Portuguese, Sicilian, and Ukrainian.
ROSALÍA told Jack Saunders of BBC Radio 1 about the album, “I would say that maybe, the center of it all the core, it's the words. It's all about the words and the lyrics. It took me one year to work on just lyrics, reading and writing. So it was a long process. Actually, the whole thing took three years to do, but it's a lot about the words. There's inspiration in Saints from all around the world and different languages.”
She continued, “I think is the main subject, which is mysticism, feminine mysticism. And that's a little conductor. That's the threat from beginning to end. And doing all this research about all these things from all across the world. And different women who were nuns, who lived their lives in a very unconventional way, who were poets, and learning from all of these amazing people around the world. It definitely was a puzzle. It was the biggest puzzle. It was a huge challenge, like a labyrinth.”
She added, “I think that everybody has to do their own journey. I think that's the beauty of fiction, like you have to go, like, do your own thing with it. And I think this album, you can listen to it. I think this album, you can read it, this album, you can experience it in many different ways. It's thought from beginning to end to be like in this order to hear from the first track to the last one. There's four movements that structure the whole album. But at the end of the day, I feel that everybody can really decide their journey. That's the beauty of it.”
ROSALÍA told Apple Music about the album, “I think the best fiction has this blurry line, the sweet spot between what's personal and what's universal, what's detailed and what's abstract, what's implicit and what's explicit. It's both. Because I wrote it, there has to be some sort of truth for me in it. But at the same time, I think it's much more about the other than about myself.”
She continued, “Where did they come from? What was the language that would be spoken there? There were a lot of women that were extremely interesting to me that were nuns, they were poets. And I was like, 'Okay, I'm going to read what they actually wrote. I'm going to try to explain these stories.'”
She added, “I definitely had chills so many times while recording vocals. I don't think I ever cried so much making an album. I don't think I've ever cried so much recording vocals. I think that I didn't maybe want to go through this before. I was like, 'I'm not ready.' I know I had to do an album like this, but I wasn't ready.”
ROSALÍA explained some tracks for the album.
“Reliquia” “I mean, 'Reliquia' is the second track of the album, lux, my new album. And you pronounce it like this, relicia. And it has different sections, and amazing musicians have been part of it. And I hope that you guys enjoyed it.”
“Porcelana” via Apple Music “The hook of 'Porcelana,' it was inspired in Amapiano but with a timpani and we had that very much written. It was just getting to the studio and being like, 'This is the line, this is the melodic line we need,' boom, we record it so, superquirúrgico.”
“Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti” via NPR “It took me a year, it took me a year! It took me so long to crack that one.
My grandma [sent me a message] this morning, maybe I can play the audio. [Plays voice memo] She's like, I heard your new song and I loved it, you changed the style, ha ha ha. She's laughing a lot, that I'm doing this now, because I think she didn't see it coming. When I was a kid, [my grandma] would have a lot of Pavarotti records in her place. And she would always be singing while she was washing dishes or whatever. It's funny because it stuck with me. She would say, you know, how could you study flamenco?
The real deal, for her, it was classical music and classical trained voices. I was like, one day I'm going to make a song that my grandma is going to be like, okay, now you got it.”
“Berghain” with Björk & Yves Tumor via Apple Music
“But then a way of saying we are not gonna do MOTOMAMI again, that's releasing 'Berghain,' first. It's releasing that and saying, 'This is la apuesta,' and also it's one of the most that are intervenida, the orchestra está intervenida. So I think that it's interesting that how much the song is pushed in that one, the orchestra song is pushed in that one and it has all the elements. I feel like it has it all. It has the full orchestra. It has the full choir. It has it all. And I think maybe it's the way of saying MOTOMAMI was minimalist, few elements. This is maximalism. A lot, big, and so I think that 'Berghain' shows that and there's all the elements in it. I think that I've always had a desire to go to that club but I never dare to, but it's always been there, 'Berghain, Berghain,' and then 'Berghain,' means arboleda en la montaña, it means a group of trees in the forest and I feel like we all kind of have these labyrinths in our heads, these forest of thoughts that you can get lost in. So, it's it's like Berghain can not be that, it can be your mind. It's your mind. It's everybody's mind.”
“De Madrugá” “In 'De Madrugá,' there's Santa Olga de Kiev, inspiration in Santa Olga de Kiev. Santa Olga de Kiev she was una governante and she basically sent so many men to be killed. That's not maybe astory of a saint we are used ot hear. So I understood through making this album, it helped me expand my idea of what saintthood is. Now, in this album, we [ROSALÍA and El Guincho] haven't seen each other. It's just that there's two songs that were from the past and that we've worked together to write, which was 'De Madrugá' and 'La Rumba Del Perdón.' So those two are from long ago, years ago, maybe six years ago or something.”
“La Yugular” “I've experienced different things through all these years of traveling and being exposed to other music and being exposed to other cultures. And all of that I think I carry with me with so much love, and I'm like, I want this to be part of this album. I exist in the world and the world exists within me. I feel like hopefully my love is plural and it's infinite. The same way I'm here and everything can be here and how can I explain this in a song? And I tried. That's what you can find in 'La Yugular' That's what it's about. My favorite art, it's where it's a little bit blurry — the personal and the universal.
That's the inspiration in that song [the idea of we're all one soul]. That's studying from Islam and being like, okay, so that's the foundations of it. How can I explain these on a song? I'm going to put these ideas, so beautiful, on a song.
The language, I find it's so interesting how much the air [is] important. At the end of the day, the breath, that's where it all starts. That's why in the beginning of the album, after that piano intro, the beginning is a breath. That's the first human sound on the album. I was struggling with recording in Arabic because I'm not used to [using] my throat like this, to make this space, and I don't even think that I got it right but I tried. That was my love letter to Arabic.”
“Focu 'ranni” via Billboard “I found out that there's this saying by Santa Rosalia de Palermo — she was supposed to get married and then she decided not to; she decided to dedicate her life to God. I thought that something in that was very powerful. I researched her story, and that's why there's some Sicilian thrown in that song. It was a challenge to sing in that language. That was a challenging song to do and to sing, but I feel grateful that it exists.”
“Sauvignon Blanc” “If I sing in Spanish in 'Sauvignon Blanc,' it's because there's inspiration in Santa Teresa de Jesús and the fact that she decided to despojarse de todo lo material and apparently she came from money but she decided to get rid of all the material stuff and, you know, pursue another type of life and another path.”
“Novia Robot” “There was this woman who was very inspiring named Sun Bu'er; she dedicated her life to becoming a teacher of the Tao. And the way she lived her life was unconventional at that time. I thought there was something powerful about her story. Apparently, in order to make a journey, she destroyed her face to be able to travel safely. And she had a partner, she had a family, but she decided she wanted to dedicate her life to spirituality. It was so bold and courageous. And at the end of that song, you hear another voice, which is in [Hebrew], that's inspired by Miriam, this figure who led an entire people and was a rebellious woman and considered close to the idea of sainthood in Judaism. So I thought that it was cool to have those two voices, the same way how in opera there are so many voices co-existing. So I thought in that song that could happen with that playfulness, yes, and playing with the sound of how Chinese Mandarin would sound.”
“La Rumba Del Perdón” with Estrella Morente & Sílvia Pérez Cruz “Now, in this album, we [ROSALÍA and El Guincho] haven't seen each other. It's just that there's two songs that were from the past and that we've worked together to write, which was 'De Madrugá' and 'La Rumba Del Perdón.' So those two are from long ago, years ago, maybe six years ago or something.”
“Memória” with Carminho via Apple Music
“Carmino wrote those lyrics. Carminho is a great writer and I love that she used this fado tradicional and she shared it with me and she sent that and I was like, 'Wait, this this is so crazy 'cause this is so perfect. This is the thing that I'm talking about in this album,' how much you can forget who you were and who you are sometimes. These lyrics now after singing with the chest so open and everything now there's a confessional moment. A lot of times memories, there are memories that are real and there are others that are a little bit fabricated and there's a vulnerability in it. Like there's both. And maybe I was just like, 'Okay, this is kind of a confession to say that there might be memories of my life that I might be more true than others.' And maybe sometimes I explain it in a way and sometimes I explain it in another. But every time I explain it, in that moment, if I'm explaining it, that's that's gona be my truth. This is my truth and there's truth in it. And I like how imperfect memory is. And, yeah, I think that it was just trying to have some dynamics in the scope where it would be a little bit more soft, lower.”
“Magnolias” via Apple Music
“It's inspired in Anandamayi Ma, she had an amazing burial, there was so many flowers like crazy and apparently everybody felt so in peace. Apparently everybody was outside, everybody felt so much peace and joy and so for me I was like, 'Wait, this is amazing to know that happened,' and I'm like, 'How would my burial be?' Maybe it's just about, 'Please, don't be sad when I die, just please have a party,' that was for me what I was asking. And in the back of my back I have a tattoo that it's something that Manuel Molina wrote, which is my favorite writer in Spain. He said, 'Que nadie vaya a llorar el día que yo me muera. Es más hermoso cantar aunque se cante con pena.' He's saying, 'Better nobody cry the day that I die. It's more beautiful to cry even if you cry with sadness.' So even if okay you're going to have maybe some sadness but still like just have fun, just enjoy.”
