Lux<\/strong> <\/p>\n \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7<\/strong> <\/p>\n Artist:<\/strong> Rosal\u00eda<\/span><\/p>\n Label:<\/strong> Columbia<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If 2025 will be remembered for anything, it will be as the year music went backwards. Oasis<\/a> flogged us nostalgia by the overpriced bucket-hatful. Radiohead<\/a> returned in a disappointing incarnation of just another band playing the hits. November welcomes the umpteenth Beatles<\/a> documentary (and umpteenth tie-in album). The gravitational pull of rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s yesteryears has become a crushing negative energy, dragging us all into a black hole of boomer and Gen X sentimentality.<\/p>\n Amid such depressive regression, how thrilling to encounter a record as fearless, confrontational and confidently unconventional as Rosal\u00eda<\/a>\u2019s Lux. That this is something other than just another pop LP is signalled on the cover, where the Catalan artist is dressed as a nun, as if to announce that she has embarked on a new path and isn\u2019t for turning.<\/p>\n The extraordinary sounds within bear that out. Across three previous releases, Rosal\u00eda has delved into flamenco, electronica and reggaeton \u2013 and become a huge star, particularly in the Spanish-speaking world. But she rips up every preconception audiences will have had of her with this breathtaking odyssey into the further reaches of experimental music, one that marks her as an heir to Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> (who passes on the baton as she pops up on the rambunctiously odd single Berghain).<\/p>\n \u201cLux\u201d means light in Latin, though Rosal\u00eda offers little in the way of upfront illumination across 15 agreeably baffling tracks (or 18 on physical editions) that see her singing in Spanish, Catalan, Japanese, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Chinese, English and German. That linguistic grandiosity is matched by the music, which pivots from minimalist chamber pop to Andrew Lloyd Webber<\/a> balladry via Aphex Twin-style ambient noodling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s stunningly avant-garde \u2013 although the initial effect is perhaps overwhelming as Rosal\u00eda\u2019s voice flutters in and out of earshot, and strings shriek and soar.<\/p>\n One person\u2019s pioneering is another\u2019s pretentious, and Lux is not for the faint of heart or anyone who feels strongly that pop peaked when Coldplay started to perform with puppets. To that end, there was almost something too metaphorical about Rosal\u00eda\u2019s recent attempt to livestream the launch of the album in Madrid, only for her to get caught in traffic as fans flocked to the event. She was literally bogged down in her own ambition.<\/p>\n