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From start to finish, Lux<\/em>, the latest album by Catalan singer Rosal\u00eda, flits from one operatic height to the next. Whether it\u2019s the maximalist choir and string orchestra of the opening track, Sexo, Violencia y Llantas<\/em>, and its pre-release single Berghain<\/em>, the breezy pop heights of Reliquia<\/em>, or the chromatic trap stylings of Porcelana<\/em>, Rosal\u00eda is adept at effortlessly fusing musical genres into a beautiful, opulent tapestry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways, Lux <\/em>is a return to form, much more similar to Rosal\u00eda\u2019s first two albums, Los \u00c1ngeles <\/em>and El mal querer<\/em>, than it is to Motomami<\/em>, her love letter to reggaeton. Despite the album\u2019s sonic range, Lux <\/em>largely eschews the Latin American beats that characterized Motomami<\/em>. Meanwhile, the flamenco claps and vocal twirls that were the center of her sound on El mal querer <\/em>are back, although their influence is somewhat more muted in comparison to the grandiose operatic solos, church choirs, and straightforwardly classical compositions that dominate Lux<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thematically, Rosal\u00eda\u2019s meditations on divinity, profanity, love, and revenge are also similar to her first two albums, although this time around with more heavily pronounced Catholic overtones. From the album art, which depicts the singer in a nun\u2019s habit and sporting the gold-painted lips and expression of a Roman statue, to song titles that reference religious relics, to the meditation on the first track \u201cqui\u00e9n pudiera venir de esta tierra\/y entrar en el cielo y volver a la tierra\u201d (\u201cwho could come from this earth, and enter heaven and return to the earth\u201d), to the direct affirmation on \u201cDe Madrug\u00e1\u201d that \u201cla cruz en el pecho calibra mi cuerpo\u201d (\u201cthe cross on my chest steadies my body\u201d) against the temptation of revenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not to say that the album is an effort to proselytize: Rosal\u00eda revels in the contradictions of love sacred and profane. On Berghain<\/em>, named for the legendary gay Berlin nightclub, a German church choir that sounds like it just finished chanting Beethoven\u2019s Ode to Joy announces a paean of communion, \u201cBj\u00f6rk\u201d declares in English that \u201cthe only way to save us is through divine intervention\u201d, and then is harshly interrupted by Yves Tumor repeatedly shouting, \u201cI\u2019ll fuck you \u2019til you love me,\u201d like a violent threat. Elsewhere, Rosal\u00eda expresses her need to hunt down her paramour as a divine imperative on the track titled \u201cDios es un stalker\u201d (\u201cGod is a stalker\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to fearlessly mixing genres, Lux<\/em> dashes across linguistic boundaries. While predominantly sung in Rosal\u00eda\u2019s distinctly peninsular Spanish, inflected with Cal\u00e9 (Andalusian Roma) vocabulary, the album also has Rosal\u00eda sing verses and refrains in Catalan, English, German, Arabic, Ukrainian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese and Italian. In interviews, Rosal\u00eda expressed her ambition that she would have included \u201call the languages of the world\u201d if she could have; at the end of the day, Rosal\u00eda is still human and the album fits in an economical 50 minute run time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rosal\u00eda\u2019s linguistic range is unique and delightful, although ultimately her global scope feels more \u201cworld traveler\u201d than \u201cinternationalist.\u201d While some languages (Portuguese and Italian) get entire songs, and English is sprinkled throughout, other languages get shorter shrift. A chorus in Latin here, a word in Ukrainian there, Rosal\u00eda\u2019s delivery of some of these lines is so quick and operatic that it can be hard to follow even if you understand the language in question and are actively listen for it. Rosal\u00eda\u2019s six lines of Japanese poetry on \u201cPorcelana\u201d is a bit more complex than North West, shouting, \u201c\u3053\u3093\u306b\u3061\u306f\u79c1\u306e\u540d\u524d\u306f\u30ce\u30fc\u30b9\u3061\u3083\u3093\uff01\u30ab\u30ea\u30d5\u30a9\u30eb\u30cb\u30a2\uff01\u304b\u3089\uff01\u6771\uff01\u4eac\uff01\u30a4\u30a8\u30b9\u69d8\u738b\u69d8\u201d (\u201cHello, my name is North-chan! From! California! to To! Kyo! Lord Jesus Lord King!\u201d) on FKA twigs\u2019s \u201cChildlike Things\u201d earlier this year, but it still sounds a bit awkward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rosal\u00eda, despite her global inflections, does not address much in the way of global politics, although it is noteworthy that she reserves her deepest expressions of vengeance for Ukrainian on \u201cDe Madrug\u00e1,\u201d with the chorus line \u201c\u042f \u043d\u0435 \u0448\u0443\u043a\u0430\u044e \u043f\u043e\u043c\u0441\u0442\u0443, \u043f\u043e\u043c\u0441\u0442\u0430 \u0448\u0443\u043a\u0430\u0454 \u043c\u0435\u043d\u0435\u201d (I do not look for revenge, revenge looks for me). Her use of Arabic for expressions of world-rending fealty is more obscure (\u0645\u0646 \u0623\u062c\u0644\u0643 \u0623\u062f\u0645\u0631 \u0627\u0644\u0633\u0645\u0627\u0621\u060c \u0645\u0646 \u0623\u062c\u0644\u0643 \u0623\u0647\u062f\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u062c\u062d\u064a\u0645\u060c \u0641\u0644\u0627 \u0648\u0639\u0648\u062f \u0648\u0644\u0627 \u0648\u0639\u064a\u062f | \u201cfor you I would destroy the heavens, for you I would demolish hell, without promises or threats,\u201d sung with an operatic delivery that is nigh-impossible to understand despite its musical euphony). Other pairings are more pat: \u201cBerghain\u201d gets German presumably because Berghain is in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, if the biggest criticism of an album is that its recording artist is not fully fluent in over 10 languages, that\u2019s a pretty solid album. Rosal\u00eda should be celebrated for attempting what no other pop star of her stature has done in recent memory, if ever, even if her global scope is more catholic than it is internationalist. Moreover, in a global moment when imperialist powers are doubling down on chauvinist ideologies of national superiority, art that crosses borders and embraces other languages is all the more valuable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rosal\u00eda\u2019s Lux delivers gorgeous multilingual operatic pop intermingled with Catholic meditations on divinity and corporality, love and revenge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":75375,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"Carlos Sapir","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6229],"tags":[6280,6281,6283,6285,6284,6279],"class_list":["post-75374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-and-culture","tag-lux","tag-luxe","tag-music","tag-pop-music","tag-review","tag-rosalia"],"yoast_head":"\nThemes of contradictions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A linguistic melange<\/h3>\n\n\n\n