"Santa Olga de Kyiv, who lived in the 10th century, was a Protestant, Rosalia continues. She was considered a saint because she brought so many people to that religion. But she was an assassin when her husband was killed, she, out of revenge, killed a lot of men. It's crazy that person can become a saint. In different religions, contexts, cultures, sainthood is understood so differently."
"If she wasn't a pop star, she says, she would be in college trying to study theology or philosophy. (Her breakout album, 2018's El Mal Querer, was her flamenco degree thesis probably the first time anyone's received academic honours and Pitchfork's best new music accolade for one project.) Meeting in a central London hotel room in mid-October, she looks quite saintly, with her waist-length dark hair, the faintest shimmer of makeup and a pale grey long-sleeved jersey dress: quiet luxury via the convent."
Rosalia rejects pop music functioning as gossip fodder and instead draws lyrical inspiration from the lives of female saints. Lux, her fourth album, mines feminine mysticism, spirituality and paradoxical lives of murder, materialism and rebellion to examine canonisation. Tracks reference historical figures such as Hildegard of Bingen, Vimala and Santa Olga of Kyiv, recontextualising visions, poetry, prostitution and political violence within sainthood narratives. The music adopts gothic and operatic tones, exemplified by the single Berghain. Prior work blended flamenco scholarship with pop; Lux continues a pattern of marrying academic and experimental impulses to mainstream music.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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