Helado Negro
Awe Owe (Asthmatic Kitty)

Helado Negro is Roberto Carlos Lange.
The son of Ecuadorean immigrants, Lange was born in South Florida in 1980. Southern Florida infused his childhood with tropical heat, humidity, hurricanes, all refracted with the rich sounds and colors of a myriad of Latin American cultures. Pounding bass beats from passing cars, boom boxes bouncing down the block, and late-night parties (peñas) provided a foundation for Lange’s interest in sound and lifelong quest to discover the unlimited variety of objects used to produce music. Lange’s musical compositions are often constructed through improvised performances and accidental
happenings, then adjusted and aligned into their final form. Over the last four years Lange has collaborated with prominent visual and sound artist, David Ellis to compose a new series of kinetic sound sculptures. These include typewriters that self-type the lyrics to “The Message,” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, (in rhythm to the song), musical owls drawn out of liquor bottles, owl costumes made out of straws, flying musical birds, motion paintings, and trashcans - full of trash - that are actually living drum machines.

Lange has also worked with famed music producer Guillermo Scott Herren to produce Prefuse 73, and with Savath and Savalas as an active member and contributor, School of Seven Bells, Paul Duncan, Bear in Heaven and many more. Roberto’s other projects include Epstein, and ROM.

Helado Negro came together when Lange moved to New York in 2006. The group concept grew through projects and experiments Lange would conduct while recording himself and others in his home studio in Brooklyn, NY. Loops, computer synthesis, record samples and live instruments provided the foundation for all these
recordings. Throughout this process many players contributed to the record, including singing by Guillermo Scott Herren (Prefuse 73) and Bear in Heaven front man Jon Philpot, drums and percussion by Chicago veteran Nori Tanaka (Lay all Over its, Jim O’ Rourke trio), Matt Crum (Feathers) and Jason Trammell. Additional instrumentation includes Jason Ajemian (Born Heller, Chicago Underground Trio) John Ellis, Shannon Fields (Stars Like Fleas). Collectively all these people are Helado Negro, but the group changes with each new day. Drawing from a rich variety of influences from the cradle to his crate digging years, Lange cites influences such as Funkadelic, DJ Premiere, South American 60’s pop, Arthur Russell, Ecuadorean ballad singer Julio Jaramillo, and the production style of Adrian Sherwoods in the early ON-U Sound releases. But when asked about his contemporaries, Roberto references all the players on the album, adding the names of visual artists David Ellis and Christian Marclay, two artists who use elements of DJ culture in their work. This is apropos when listening to the record, which it seems as if the songs have been sculpted or painted.

When describing his sound, Lange explains that most of the songs start as a simple idea like a loop from the MPC, recordings of himself playing guitar, field recordings re-processed in the computer, or sampling from vinyl. The music develops with the understanding that no idea is sacred, and each new element contributes, whether it’s kept or discarded as the song moves itself forward. The music is saturated with the glow of Latin music explorers like Os Mutantes, Tom Zev, and Arto Lindsay, while vocal influences range from Hector Lavoe to the Red Crayola’s Mayo Thompson, but Lange’s musical sensibilities derive more from instinct and emotion than stylistic identifiers. Throughout the album his vocals (with lyrics sung in Spanish), shrouded in wet reverbs and slappy delays, float above a weave of buoyant guitars and polyrhythmic sounds, conveying both transparent and abstract romantic-poetic ideas. The album title, Awe Owe, or AH! OH?, references Lange’s outlook on his past and future, “AH!” for realization and “OH?” for his understanding of how there is always much more to learn.

back to top