After 2022’s MOTOMAMI, Spanish pop artist Rosalía is back with her upcoming fourth album, LUX. Marking her return is the lead single “Berghain”, a collaboration with experimental musicians Björk and Yves Tumor, accompanied by a jaw-dropping music video that blurs the line between reality and fantasy.
The music video starts with Rosalía going about her day in her apartment, surrounded by an orchestra and choir that sings to her in German, before the singer, sitting by the bathtub in an apron, sings back in breathy falsetto.
Many things happen afterward. In a hospital room, hooked to an electrocardiogram machine, she starts singing in Spanish, showing off the vocal chops she honed through classical training. When she comes back to her apartment, still hounded by the orchestra, she finds the door ajar with forest animals populating an empty home.
Here, Björk comes into the picture as a robin, telling Rosalía, “The only way to save us is through divine intervention.” In other shots, the Spanish singer is haunted by Yves Tumor saying, “I’ll fuck you ‘til you love me,” until, tossing and turning in her bed, Rosalía transforms into a dove. Now, I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m gagged.
An on-the-nose reference in the music video is Disney’s 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but it may possibly be German filmmaker-photographer Phillip Kaminiak’s 2013 photo and video series “After Hours,” which captures foxes and deer roaming inside the actual Berghain nightclub in Berlin, Germany.
Rosalía’s “Berghain” feels like both a departure and a homecoming, and we can expect more of that in LUX. Sonically and visually, it pushes Rosalía further into the realm of avant-pop and surrealist performance art, shedding the reggaeton bravado of MOTOMAMI for something more elusive and spiritual. Yet when her voice breaks into those melismatic, flamenco-tinged runs, it’s clear she’s still in dialogue with her roots.
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