“Feeling More Than I've Ever Felt:” Helado Negro Finds Freedom on 'Phasor'

The Helado Negro rule goes pretty deep. The prolific electronic artist and producer has been making music since 2009, and his discography is filled with all kinds of weird twists and surprises: Scroll through the catalog and you'll find mazes of noisy noise, subtle abstractions, lush robot love songs, and more — all connected with a constant sense of curiosity.

For Helado Negro, whose real name is Roberto Carlos Lange, the creative process is never the same from album to album. “Sometimes you're like, 'I've done this 100 times, but if I do it the same way again, it's like I'm copying the last thing I did,'” he says. Rolling rock in a recent interview in New York. “You kind of have to relearn things, even though you have these muscle memories in the music.”

Some projects, he admits, were more demanding than others: That's how you smile, his stunning album from 2019, captured Lange at an intense time in his career. He was living in New York and juggling several deadlines, trying to complete the songs for the project. “There was this tension that pushed me to finish, just an underlying anxiety and being in that kind of productivity environment,” he recalls.

But for his latest album, Phasor, things went a little differently. By then, Lang had moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where he worked on the LP in a slower but more regimented way, unlocking a new kind of freedom in music. The album is sprawling and carefree, with hints of psychedelia and tons of bright, shimmering synths. “I'm in a different place in my life. I feel a lot more inside than I've ever felt before,” explains Lange. “I'm so excited about every aspect of what we do, especially the shows and the performances. I don't think I've ever enjoyed it as much as I do now.”

Talking to you Rolling rockLange broke down some of his favorite songs Phasor, and he also shared why he can't wait to perform them during his US tour, which kicks off April 21 in Asheville. See full dates below.

“LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros)”

I was reading Pauline Oliveros. I was aware of her work and, in the last few years, I started to engage more with it and think about the philosophy of deep listening. I was thinking about what this means in my life. I've already lived in that world a lot through the music and the sound work I've done with films and movies and having those moments of deep listening and just listening to life.

And then I came across this photo of Lupe Lopez. I was trying to find an amp that my friend Matt was bringing to Savannah, and I was like, “Man, I want one of those.” Then I came across some forum that had this picture of Lupe Lopez. I was like, “Who is this woman and why are they making this forum post about her?” The forum was full of collectors of her amps and they knew who hers were because on the inside, on a piece of quality control tape, it said “Lupe”. And people loved these amps because of the tone and sound it produced. Like, there's a poem to it: She's sitting at her bench, she's putting something together, and it was nice to see her care and her talent and her touch and the way she did it and how it resonated, you know? Well, it was a mixture of that and Pauline's idea of ​​deep listening in a philosophical sense, “What do you hear inside?”

“Flores”

“Flores” was a song that floated in the background for a while. It's one of the ones I worked on the most and it was the hardest to finish because there were all these challenges with it. I really couldn't figure it out: what I liked about it, what I didn't like. It was one of those mystery songs. It took a while to really build it up. I certainly cut it several times.

I've been thinking about the things you want to say to people and feeling unsure if it's the right time or if you're going to say something wrong and hope you could have said the right thing. I was thinking about two people who passed away in my life: my grandmother and then another friend who died early in her life. I was thinking about the people you can't see and how sometimes it's like, “I could have done something else. I could have said something a little differently.”

“Colores Del Mar”

That was a great feeling more than anything else. I just loved making it as a producer and as a mix engineer, I just did it all. I was just in love with the configuration of this. Not too heavy on the idea, just that energy.

I feel like everything works in parallel — when I'm working on songs, I don't stop time and make sure somebody's fishing. Everything moves at the same time or progresses simultaneously. I like doing this because I listen to everything so I can hear the flow of how the other songs respond to the other things and make sure there are sonic ideas within each song that connect and complement each other.

“The echo fools me”

“Echo Tricks Me” was two lines of baritone guitar and just me singing. My friend recorded drums for it, and it was so simple. There are flourishes that I added, but it was just the baritone guitar, the bass, we added some percussion and it was magical. I was like, “Oh shit, okay, that's it.”

“Out there”

'Echo Tricks Me' and 'Out There' are very special to me at the moment. I think they represent a lot of where my mind and feeling is with music and new things I want to keep exploring. Even when I perform them live, I feel lost and in a place that feels exciting. The other songs feel great, but these two define a lot of movement and patience with myself and things I've seen change.

You feel like there's always these titles that are given to you when you do anything with music, like “singer-songwriter”, things like that. And I don't see me in those particular titles: “singer-songwriter” “musician” is sometimes confusing. But I'm at the shows. And so, with these songs, through the performance and through the recorded versions, I'm like, “Oh, I can see that everything is connected through these songs.” I'd like to continue to be called those things if these songs are a representation of that.

Helado Negro tour Dates
April 21 – Asheville, NC -@Eulogy
April 22 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina @ Cats Cradle
April 23 – Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
April 24 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
April 26 – Boston, MA @ Sinclair
April 27 – Hamden, Connecticut @ Space Ballroom
April 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
April 30 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
May 1 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
May 3 – Denver, Colorado @ Globe Hall
May 4 – Salt Lake City, Utah @ The Urban Lounge