Ginestà: "Catalonia cannot absorb more songs about the pretty girl from Cadaqués"

BarcelonaThe Barcelona-born siblings Júlia and Pau Serrasolsas have consolidated Ginestà as a unique proposal in the Catalan music ecosystem. A pop music attentive to the present and lyrics about the eternal circumstances of love continue to build a group that has just released its fifth album, Gira tot igual, però diferent (Halley Records, 2026). The presentation tour will begin on May 1st on the steps of Girona Cathedral, as part of the Strenes Festival programming.

You've made an album about the cycle of love, although the last song is another story which I'll ask you about later. Does love lend itself to so much?

— Júlia Serrasolsas: Yes, although it's not exactly an album about the cycles of love, but about cycles in general. Political cycles too, like the one in the last song; cycles as a project and about the passage of time. We did want to talk about love from a more panoramic and perhaps more mature perspective than in other works. We want to explain how each relationship configures you, and shapes the next one.

— Pau Serrasolsas: It is a much more reflective album, in which the words are much more thought out and there is less room for chance or spontaneity.

The first four songs reflect the first phase of falling in love and the worries it brings, right?

— J.S.: We were clear that we wanted to start with "Amb tu i per tu", that in the middle there had to be "La casualitat" and that we wanted to end with the song "Gira tot igual, però diferent". Even so, we have ordered the rest of the songs more by musical dynamics. But it is true that in the first songs there is this initial spark.

— P.S.: Yes, but later in the second part of the album there is Muamuamua and Finestres, which is also a huge expression of love.

Musically it is an album with quite a few contrasts. Have you chosen the musical color according to the feeling you are expressing or not?

— P.S.: It depends on each song. There are songs that when you are composing them, they indicate it to you on their own, but sometimes we have worked much more with Xicu [Cesc Valverde, the producer], both on production and composition. When you have the first version of the song with lyrics and guitar, there are always many paths, and it is likely that on this album we have chosen the most logical path. If it's a party, it's a party. If it's rage, it's rage. If it's tranquility, it's tranquility.

Can you identify any instrument with these feelings? For example, the string and the piano that imbue chance.

— J.S.: It's a very beautiful song about the chance that makes life paths cross. The song itself said: "Please, put me a quartet!".

— P.S.:Chance has a less visible part that explains that many times we are face to face in a war between the tranquility of a stable relationship and the glances someone gives you on the street. I think there are many songs that, no matter how much the lyrics lead you one way and the music accompanies it, it's not so clear black or white.

And why do you decide that The mirror and Windows have these guitars that the other songs don't have?

— P.S.: Because we also wanted dirtiness. We are thinking a lot about a new live show, which we want to take towards a much more rock'n'roll point, much more relaxed, much more dirty... Well, not very dirty, but...

— J.S.: But may it reach the heart.

In Finestres Ernest Crusats, the former singer of La Iaia, collaborates. In fact, the song is reminiscent of what La Iaia used to do, and not just because of the voice.

— P.S.: We were talking about it in the studio. Ernest told us: "What do you want? That I sing or that people think of La Iaia again?" And we told him: "You sing the lead, you sing the second voice too, and then it will be La Iaia".

— J.S.: It was great working with Ernest because we saw different ways of doing things. He was very clear about how his voice should be edited. For example, when he said "Now I need you to remove the reverb" or "Now I need you not to tune this note, that it's fine like this".

And the collaboration with Alba Armengou on I love you so much how did it go?

— P.S.: With Alba it was different. When I heard her voice I felt a pang. I needed to have her on the record. We wrote the song halfway. We met at my place and something very curious happened to us. So as not to arrive there and just sit down to have breakfast, I asked her to bring an idea, and I would bring another. For a long time I had in mind, as a reference, the song Telefonía, by Jorge Drexler, but I wanted to take it somewhere else. Instead of hating the means of communication that distances you from another person, you love that medium and respect it because it's what connects you. It occurred to me on the train, because, no matter how badly they work, they take you to see the one you love most. I proposed this to Alba. And the coincidence was that she, on her way to my house, was listening to this Drexler album, which she hadn't listened to in years.

— J.S.: In I love you so much there is also a phrase that says "If the light went out, I would come to your door". And the last day we met to see how we fit our voices was the day of the great blackout [on April 28, 2025].

Be part of the generation that grew up with apps like Tinder. But, on the other hand, in the song Muamuamua, you call for love that arises in person in a nightclub, going from room 1 to room 2.

— P.S.: I have never had Tinder.

— J.S.: Me neither.

— P.S.: I have a great time meeting someone while partying somewhere; I've really enjoyed this mix of nervousness and freedom.

— J.S.: Furthermore, it's such a concrete feeling, this one. There are 3,000 strangers around, but you're focused on just one thing: seeing what happens tonight with this nervousness that becomes a bit of an obsession.

— P.S.: It is very Mediterranean to meet people this way, face to face.

It's a good way to waste time.

— P.S.: Yes. And to lose my mind.

— J.S.: Do you know who followed me on Instagram yesterday? Tinder Spain. They sent me a message to collaborate with me. No way.

This kind of proposals would contradict things you explain in the last song, Everything turns the same, but different, about characters who sell their ideals for fame.

— J.S.: Yes, we are very careful with the things we say and do, because sometimes you get distracted and suddenly you are collaborating with a brand or a brand is sending you a message that wants to do something and behind it there are more suspicious things.

— P.S.: In this song we try to explain to our grandfather how the world is since he is no longer here. And it was also a good excuse to talk about our vision without mincing words and with the rawness of a hanging microphone capturing a guitar and two voices in the middle of orange groves in Cambrils. He lived in a very different world from the one we live in now: he was born in 1927 and died in 2022. In the end, life goes on, everything keeps turning the same, but different. However, we cannot stop saying the things that make us uncomfortable, that bother us and that, unfortunately, almost no one else says about this good musical scene of ours.

Do you feel obliged to make songs like this to remember where you come from?

— J.S.: It's been many albums since we've made a song like this, explicitly with political lyrics. What we have always done is participate in projects like the Gaza Flotilla, initiatives in favor of dignified housing... It gives the impression that we are talking about politics all the time, but it's not explicit in the songs.

“There are those who come to tell stories, those who just want to make the hit, who are eaten by their own character”, you sing.

— P.S.: There are many people who seem not to like music, who only want to make a hit.

— J.S.: And people using AI: "Make me a hit for the summer that talks about the beach and with these bands as a reference". Where is the craftsmanship of music? And I think the public is starting to value the craftsmanship of music again in a world where you don't know if anything is true or not.

— P.S.: It's like those reels that show up on Instagram, where it seems to be the same song talking about the pretty girl from Cadaqués. Round and round about the same topic. I think Catalonia can't absorb any more songs like this because we're full.

— J.S.: And hopefully people will find in our album this refuge of sincerity and truth.

You could say you want to change things from within, because in some way you participate in a scene that, precisely, enhances this type of thing.

— P.S.: Yes, of course, we are here, and it is evident that we want to change things from within. I believe that at this moment in our lives we feel free to do what we want. We are aware that the formula of the EP Només viure worked for us at a level we wouldn't have imagined, and that it's somewhat what the public was asking for due to the absence of other groups or our own shortcomings, because we hadn't known how to do it before, I don't know. With the new album, perhaps we are not giving our public what they always want right away, but I think it's what they need. We have poured a lot of truth into the songs on this album. And I think that is captured.

What people need is to regain faith in simple things, as you sing in a song?

— J.S.: It is important, and I think it is even anti-system to talk about simple things at a time like this, when everything spins super fast, the day-to-day rushes over you and it seems like you have to live things super intensely all the time. Let's slow down and talk about these simple things that exist and are super necessary and that make you happy.

From the life of a musician, what is the simplest thing you like the most?

— P.S.: The context of this song is that things we never would have dreamed of keep happening to us, and much more often than a person can handle. Over the years, you end up relativizing it and not giving it enough value. And at the same time, you take the opposite step, which is to value things like continuing to live in your neighborhood close to your friends, which is something that seems very normal, but that a lot of people can no longer do because they have to leave. It's going to sound very cheesy, but it doesn't matter: having a calm and normal routine and being able to do the things I feel like doing and working at what I like most are things that should be valued. If you don't value them, later you will look at yourself in perspective and you will detest yourself.

— J.S.: After so much speed and so much inertia with the tour, we need more to get out of the city and go to the mountains. To get out of here and see the passage of time from another place.

Have you had to suffer the media wash or not?

— J.S.: Maybe you a little more. Me no.

— P.S.: With my previous relationship a bit yes, but it's not something that has ever kept me awake at night.

Julia, you owed Pau a song in response to the one he dedicated to you. Finally, you've made it and it's titled Pau. Have you found it very difficult to find the words to describe him?

— J.S.:Júlia, you owed Pau a song in return for the one he dedicated to you. You've finally written it and it's called

You describe Pau as a person who writes stories of great loves... and some spite. The spiteful song on the album is El mirall.. Did you want to make a spiteful song that wasn't influenced by your own life?

— P.S.: Exactly. One day we were at home playing the piano and Xicu put on a song by the Mexican Christian Nodal. And we listened to the rancheras, this whole world of unfiltered heartbreak, even bordering on crime many times. And it was a bit of us teasing each other and daring to put some real anger into it. And El mirall came out.El mirall.

— J.S.: Resentment is quite a feeling.

— P.S.: I, as extreme as I am, I've never heard it in my life, but I had a great time writing this song and singing it with a lot of anger. For me it's a hit.

"Now I feel sorry for what used to hurt me". Sophisticated spite in its purest state.

— P.S.: It's the most beastly song we've written, although the music isn't as aggressive.

Favorite love songs, do you have any?

— P.S.: A favorite love song that I've been listening to a lot these days is Pura geografia, by Maria Jaume. It's very good.

— J.S.: I'm listening to Mon amour, by Naâman, a song my partner showed me the other day. It's as if the character in the song were dying and were singing a song to their partner. It's very heavy, it's very well done.

— P.S.: And then there's Socunbohemio, who is one of a kind. I think he's taking things easy, and making the album at his own pace. I think he's the best at this.