Júlia Colom: "Mallorca is already like a post-paradise"

BarcelonaAnyone who has heard her live already knows how striking Júlia Colom's (Valldemossa, 1997) musicality is. The album Miramar (2023) showcased an artist who celebrated her family roots and Mallorcan melodies with a vibrant, naturalness that felt anything but archaeological. She also added a contemporary pop perspective. Now, with a more cohesive sound that blends the ever-present lute with electronic elements (a magnificent production with Martin Leiton and Òscar Garrobe), she releases the album Paradise (La Castaña, 2025). He will present it live in Hall 3 of L'Auditori in Barcelona on December 11th.

Where do you live now?

— Between Mallorca and Barcelona. In both places. I could live in Barcelona all the time and only go to Mallorca at Christmas or for a week in the summer, but I'm the one who wanted to stretch things out so I could go to Mallorca more often.

Also for artistic reasons?

— Yes, because everything artistic stems from a very personal foundation. After living in Barcelona for many years, I've realized that I'm better off if I can go to Mallorca more often. The price to pay is spending more time at the airport and not being able to fully organize my medium- or long-term plans, but I can be in Valldemossa, which is the best thing that can happen to me so I can recharge my batteries and return to the city.

From the experience of making the album MiramarWhat have you applied to Paradise?

— With Miramar I had no prior recording experience. And there's a world of difference between having none and having some. If we're talking purely about music, in Miramar I made a rather eclectic album that included songs rooted in tradition, my own songs, and different sounds. It was difficult to make myself understood with so many ingredients on the same album. Paradise I decided to impose many limitations on production options, sound, and timbre so that everything would come from the same place, so that the listener would feel immersed in the same sound the entire time, making it easy to understand. I wanted them all to be my songs, although there is one with Tarta Relena that isn't. His Madonna.

Also you explained that Miramar It was a disc with a functionbecause the logic of how the music industry operated demanded a record from you.

— Ah, yes. It's just that with albums... I really like the concept of making songs with the idea of an album in mind. Making singles It just doesn't seem like a particularly interesting starting point to me. But, nevertheless, I can't help but wonder. Do I need to release an album? Do people need Julia Colón to release an album? Nobody has told me, "I'll throw myself in front of a train if you don't release the album." If that were the case, I would release it gladly. But I've felt in a somewhat strange position. I started giving concerts many years ago, and I haven't stopped. And it's been incredible. I've always wanted it to be a work. I understand that the rules of the game are what they are, but I was already fine not having an album.

One of the big differences between Miramar and Paradise It's precisely the material. Virtually all the songs are original compositions.

— This album began to take shape at the presentation of MiramarI presented it in Barcelona at Primavera Sound 2023And they asked us for a three-quarters-of-an-hour performance. With the material from Miramar It wouldn't even last half an hour live, even if I got a really, really loud round of applause. I needed to do another four or five songs to fill the remaining fifteen minutes. Of those, one survived the whole process. Paradise: TrellisesI would say it was the seed song of the whole project that came after.

Trellises It has one of the most powerful verses on the whole album: "I'll make you believe I'm jealous and that way you'll believe you're my man."

— I thought it would be fun to have a song that imitated the structure of Mallorcan romances. This song is a sister toEnvy, From the first album. It was very helpful for me to write a song about envy. In my relatively short time as an adult, I discovered that adults feel or experience envy, that it's not something children do when they steal toys. Some things happened to me that made me think, "I can't believe it." And people closer to me said that this was envy. Well, I've heard it myself sometimes; I'm not excluding myself from the equation. I liked reflecting on the topic. And that's why... Trellises It's a sister song to that one. Because yes, they are emotions that we don't particularly like to acknowledge as our own or to feel in others, but when I sing them at concerts everyone recognizes themselves a little or makes a little peace with themselves.

Trellises and Together in the water Those are the two songs on the album where you do specify the gender of the protagonists, but in other songs there isn't a marked gender. Do you do that consciously?

— I just don't feel comfortable assigning a genre to it, because if you get too specific, half the film is lost. In the lyrics of this album, I wanted to evoke more feelings and I've left them very open so that everyone can understand them in their own way without having to explain so much or be so specific.

Yes, you specify the sound. I would say only Together in the water and His Madonna They deviate somewhat from that more cohesive sound.

— Yes, exactly. It was a challenge, the cohesion. When you start producing, there are so many options that the difficult thing is limiting yourself. His Madonna It's a song that has been with me since I discovered it when I was 14. I did a folk music project in which Biel Majoral participated, and I heard him sing it. I didn't know it before. More or less, all the tunes and songs I sing are from my family background, but not this one. And I remember hearing it for the first time and being captivated by the melody and what the lyrics explain. I wanted to give it significant space His MadonnaIn fact, I didn't put it in Miramar because I needed more space for this song to be there and have an important place.

But you did play it live.

— It's one of my favorite songs to sing. And in ParadiseThe fact that all the songs were my own except for this one allows me to talk more about His Madonna.

It's a very curious case, isn't it?

— Yes. Of the songs and tunes I sing in Mallorca, there are always people who tell me, "My godmother used to sing this one to me," "My mother used to sing this one," "I sing this one." But with His MadonnaSo far, I've only met one person who knew it: Biel Majoral. I'm starting to think he's the last living witness who knows it. It's a song that's barely survived. The lyrics are incredibly exaggerated. "This place will be as big as Mallorca nine times over," it says. The "madana" is what in Catalonia is called a "masovera," the peasant woman who lives on a farm. She's not the lady of the house, but the peasant woman who manages everything. And in this song, she lists everything she owns: 1,500 acres of wheat, 2,000 sheep, 400 ox dogs... And she stretches reality so much that it seems almost surreal. It reminds me a bit of the genre of songs that tell tall tales.

As the songs of nonsense What does Maria del Mar Bonet sing?

— Maria del Mar Bonet sings songs of transformations, which are also romances that evolve and shift from one thing to another, playing with reality but also with the surreal. I like to think that His Madonna It's one of those songs where fantasy is woven into the music to explain reality. I love it.

Mallorca is omnipresent throughout the album, even though it's not explicitly mentioned. An island for you and me You claim that in Mallorca you can still go, that it's "an apple with a bed" for everyone else.

— This verse is a pain for me, because the song is like a super open and super passionate invitation to come to Mallorca, but really the island is a metaphor: I want you to come to me, to understand who I am and why I am the way I am, to understand my colors, my sounds, my childhood. And that's why you have to come to my island. But it wasn't so much in the literal sense of a Mallorcan souk, come to my island. I haven't sung it much yet, but when I do, it's something I talk about, because we're really so overwhelmed that it's not something I feel like doing... The people who listen to me and are interested in my music are super respectful, and I tell them: you're not the problem. But the reality is that living in Mallorca is hard to bear, and I, specifically, am from a town that, by definition, is the most touristy in Mallorca.

In the interviews about Miramar You said that Mallorca can't be told only about the good things.

— That's one of the reasons why the album is called Paradise That's why the price to pay for paradise is so high. I think it's already like a post-paradise. What happens to a paradise after it once was? Because, I don't know, we're left with the concept of paradise stuck there, but experiencing it from within makes you rethink many things.

You released the album shortly before Rosalía's return to recording. How do you think it has influenced artists of your generation?

— He has done a great service to the music of this country.

You yourself, on the album, have the collaborations of Tarta Relena and Ouineta, which are also possible thanks to the artistic framework that Rosalía opened.

— Yes, and they represent two parts of me. It has also opened many doors for the public to understand a broader reality than what artists had previously presented. And as a singer, you appreciate that someone other than yourself has already tamed people a little.

Relena CakeDespite the sensitive material they work with, they do not do so solemnly, but rather bring a playful and fun element.

— I love how Tarta does it. Of everything in Catalonia, I'd say they're my favorite. They take something that has weight and significance, and their musicality is incredibly profound, but they also make the conversation with them as an audience feel light and easy. Reaching this point is very difficult, and they achieve it.

You're going down that road, aren't you?

— I'd like to take the weight off all these concepts of roots music and the theories surrounding it... to make it easier. Easy doesn't mean worse.

What's your best memory related to music? And which one would you like to forget?

— Okay, let's start with the most pleasant memory. When I was six or seven years old, my grandfather, who was a great singer, sensed that of all the grandchildren he had, I might be the one to learn. The Song of the Sibylwhich has been passed down orally within my paternal family for many generations. I remember being in the dining room of his house and seeing his handwriting printed on it, because The Song of the Sibyl It's very long and very melismatic. And I remember the first feeling of having to concentrate to sing, of understanding that this requires focus. I remember very well the pleasure I felt being concentrated and singing. I really like feeling that I have to be calm and focused, because otherwise it doesn't turn out well. I connected with this, and to this day, I'm still connected.

And a bad experience?

— I've experienced so many that I couldn't even begin to count them. You go to France, Germany, Canada, or Mexico, and there's a real respect. They're very clear that music is worthwhile. And it's not so much like that there. If you're established, everyone respects you, but it's happened to me that I've been singing in a public square and someone has come up, taken the microphone from me, and said, "Who's double-parked here?" I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who have spent their entire lives doing street concerts, not on stages with spotlights. I admire the people who dedicate themselves to this and who have the strength to keep going and continue loving music.

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