Ivette Nadal: "If for whatever reason it were my last album, I think it is everything that right now I can give"

BarcelonaSuddenly it is as if Ivette Nadal (Granollers, 1988) had opened the window to pop. The singer-songwriter from the Vallès region has sought the complicity of Joan Pons (El Petit de Cal Eril) and Joan Colomo to produce And that will be all... (Halley Records, 2026), an album that arrives one year after Cada dos cels (2025), the record dedicated to the galactics Pau Riba and Jaume Sisa. Nadal, who lives with multiple sclerosis, has let in a breath of melodic freshness into her artistic world.

How long has a project like this album, which is quite different from many things you have done, been on your mind?

— A couple of years ago, when I hadn't yet made the galactic album, I already knew that I had to make a quite significant change regarding the band's sound and the tone of the songs.

And why do you think you felt this need?

— For many years I have stretched the same register, and I am happy and grateful for it, but I no longer felt those songs were so much my own. I had the feeling that I had to sing very different songs, with more air and more light, and that perhaps they would not stir me as much when singing them on stage.

There is an interesting paradox. The album title, And that will be all..., which is taken from a line of a song, has a somewhat ominous component. But listening to the first five or six songs, I thought the title could be quite the opposite: Goodbye sadness.

— Yes, I think it is the brightest album and the one with the most air. This is thanks to the hands of the producers, but I have also composed it from a different place. It is a more narrative album, with deep but more everyday lyrics. And the title comes from playing with some verses of the song Pedres, ocells i flors, which is like an ode to small things and to giving importance to memories, to the family home. At the same time, I think I am now delivering this album, and this is everything I am now and what I can continue to offer. In a couple of years, I do not know where I will be. Therefore, if for any reason it were my last album, I think it is everything I can give right now.

Have you thought about it?

— Yes, it is possible. Due to my own health issues, but also due to issues related to a rather closed music industry, from now on I will take life in a different way. That is why the songs have a different light. Because of all this, it will surely be the last time I try to make such a band-like sound, with so much production. On the other hand, I have tried to make this album very personal, but not made so much from the wound.

Are you aware that putting yourself in the hands of both Joan Pons and Joan Colomo would condition the way you sing?

— Yes, yes, I was very aware of it. Joan Colomo has kept my way of singing and being very much intact, but I went to look for Joan Pons because I felt like exploring, giving him space and being generous in the sense that the voice and the lyrics should be just one more instrument, not the main one. It hasn't been easy, because yes, the project is mine, I compose it, I finance it, and this renunciation is difficult. But I felt that I had to share the weight. For example, there are a couple of songs that I co-composed with a musician, and I had never done that before. Yes, I was aware that I needed a sound renewal, yes.

In Mai les ales, which is surely the most pop song you have ever made, there is a twelve-string guitar.

— Yes, practically all the twelve-string guitars on this record are Joan Pons'. They are very much his.

And you place them from the very beginning because they create a different color.

— Yes.

In addition to the producers, the album features collaborations from Triquell, Santi Balmes, and David Carabén. Musicians of very different generations and styles as well.

— With Triquell I had it very clear. I am interested in his vocal register, he has a tessitura that fits very well with mine. I also really like how he recites, the attitude. Even though he comes from a television show, he is building a quite alternative career. I have always really liked how Santi Balmes writes. I knew he was willing to sing in Catalan, and since we have a good friend in common, Manolo García, as a result of meeting up, the possibility of doing the collaboration arose. And with David Carabén... It was a thorn that I needed to get out of my side regarding a project we were supposed to have together.

The song with David Carabén, Som, has a drive that contrasts with the vulnerability of Fràgil and De què fugim? "If I am the light, you are the storm and you extinguish me", you sing in Fràgil.

— Fràgil and De què fugim? are the ones that most resemble what I had done until now; they are more melancholic, deeper. And the others have a slightly more positive air.

How are you planning the live stream?

— I am happy with the band. There is the drummer Mau Boada [Esperit!]; Pasto Martí, who is a bassist that is very much related to the whole Eril group, and the guitarist Marcel Torres, who has been with me for a long time. The album is very pop. On the other hand, the live show is a bit progressive rock, much more energetic. It is still pop, but it has instrumental pieces. And instead of coming out with more of a singer-songwriter, more folk vision, I have put the guitar aside a bit to be able to be a bit with a keyboard and to be able to move in a different way on stage.

And I sing with my hands on the mic.

— Exactly. Without the armor of the guitar. And to express myself more with movement and the body.

I read in Enderrock magazine that a great-great-grandfather of yours was a gardener for the Queen of England...

— Yes, that side of the family is what the song Pedres, ocells i flors talks about.

It is a poem by your mother, Montse Aldrufeu, isn't it?

— Yes. It is like paying tribute to this branch of the family from Vilassar de Mar, who were botanists. They bred some of the first yellow roses. If we have colored roses, it is thanks to this family. And there is the anecdote about the great-great-grandfather, who dyed the first rose while being the gardener to the Queen of England.

Your mother's poem talks about being a slave to memories. Are you a slave to any memory?

— No. Currently, I would tell you no, but it is true that my personality has lived a lot, in quotation marks, from the past. I have stretched it a lot, the past, the wound, and from that I have made myself a bit of a personality. Now I live very much day by day. Despite the health situation I may have, I am in a moment more selective and happier than ever in this regard. Now I do not feel like a slave to the things that may have happened.

Returning to the first song on the album, Mai les ales, the structure and the way it is sung makes one think you are addressing someone in particular. Is it simply an aesthetic device or are you actually addressing the song to someone?

— Yes, I address it to someone: "You who can, fly for both, dream for both, live for both". That is to say, whatever happens in life, with music, with health, seize the moment, live. I dedicate it to one person, but it can also be the listener.

What is day-to-day life like with the disease?

— Multiple sclerosis had a different prognosis many years ago and now it is much better because there are many medications. Even so, it is a disease with symptoms that are still quite invisible and that changes your life. That is why I suppose the album is also more optimistic in the sense of taking advantage of every moment and being grateful for everything.

Yes, in the songs there is no longer that catharsis that occurred just after the diagnosis, when the diagnosis sets you free because you finally find out what is happening to you.

— Exactly. I think it could have been a more tragic album, or I might not have even wanted to make an album, and on the contrary: I have more desire to take care of myself. I have more desire to sing than ever, to get on stage and to dance, which I have never done, for example. Therefore, it awakens positive things in me even if internally it leads me to have a discomfort that I did not have before.

Could it be that you are also wearing clothes of a brighter color?

— Yes, yes, I have also changed the clothing aesthetic. I have tried to move away from black a little bit.