Liliana de la Rosa Unveils Debut Single ‘Haunted by Roses’

The track is a stunning cinematic crafted dark alt-pop wonder for fans of BANKS.

Sydney-based Liliana de la Rosa has shared her brooding, cinematic debut single, Haunted by Roses’.

The track explores the fallout of an obsessive relationship and brings listeners into Liliana’s femme fatale world, which is inspired by her career as a professional actress in film and theatre.

Liliana played the lead in 2022 Aussie horror flick After She Died and the Australian short Dreamlink, which was nominated for a 2025 AACTA Award for Best Short Film.

“‘Haunted by Roses’ is a lament and love letter to the dreamlike descent from a once-loving romance turned toxic whirlwind. It’s about no longer recognising the person you loved once the rose coloured glasses come off,” Liliana says of the song.

“I wanted the track to feel cinematic and intimate, something that drifts under your skin late at night and makes you confront the parts of yourself you try to ignore. It’s a reflection of desire, power, and the complexities of love, and I hope listeners feel both haunted and entranced when they hear it.”

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The track is accompanied by a music video conceived by Liliana, who had this to say about the clip, “The concept for the music video, like most things, came to me in a weird hazy daydream at the end of 2024 whilst in LA. I had been playing with grand cinematic sounds and started writing the song in November of that year, and I actually created almost the entire concept for the music video inside my head shot list, motifs, colours before I'd even finished writing the lyrics,” she says.

“I had been daydreaming about lotus flowers, which in Greek mythology is a narcotic fruit that causes blissful apathy and an almost trance-like state in people that eat it. This inspired the whole trance part of the song, which led me down the path of exploring an intoxicating ballroom dance, and to me it was the perfect symmetry to being stuck in the trance of a person. Visually, I was also inspired by the thriller film Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick and the colour red, and of course, a lot of roses.”

‘Haunted by Roses’ by Lilian de la Rose is out now. Listen here.