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Sep 16, 2021 By Joey Arnone Photography by Michelle Arcila

Xenia Rubinos has shared a new song, “Don’t Put Me in Red.” It is the latest single release from her forthcoming album, Una Rosa, which will be out on October 15 via ANTI-. Check out the video, directed by Zoe Fitzgerald (aka Fatblood), below.

The new song is inspired by experiences that Rubinos had on tour; she states in a press release that lighting engineers would throw red lights on her and leave them there “like it was their default red Latina lighting.” Rubinos thereafter made it a staple to tell lighting engineers before shows, “‘look, I don’t know anything about stage lighting so do whatever you want but please just please don’t put me in red.’ It became my request at whatever venue or festival we were at, it was a pilgrimage I would make every night after soundcheck to find the lighting engineer and ask them to please not put me in red. It became this ritual of protecting my space onstage at least the little bit I could.”

The song was intentionally created to be lyrically sparse in order to create what Rubinos describes as “a dream space that becomes a nightmare where I’m running down a long hallway with people chasing and grasping at me.” She adds: “As we produced the track, I started to imagine a gigantic thunderstorm slowly rolling over the ocean and unfolding right before my eyes. I knew I wanted to make a visualizer to embody this feeling of something dark and stormy washing over me, something with heavy explosive feelings like thunder and heavy rain.”

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