Interview: Helado Negro
Phasor, the newly-released eighth studio album by Asheville-based Helado Negro, opens with the delightfully joyous, driving tune “LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros),” before settling into the chill groove of danceable psychedelic art pop that the musical project of multi-instrumentalist Roberto Carlos Lange has become known for since his 2009 debut Awe Owe. The parenthetical “Lupe Finds Oliveros” of the song title is a reference to a pair of sonic luminaries who are relatively unknown to the general public. Lupe Lopez is highly regarded amongst musicians for her impeccable work on Fender amplifiers. Meanwhile, the better known Pauline Oliveros was an important electronic and ambient music pioneer whose philosophy towards music paid great mind to context and presence of mind.
During a brief phone conversation with Lange, the fascinating role of context was a consistent thread that kept emerging, even as we bounced around several different topics of discussion.
Released Feb. 9 on 4AD, Phasor is the first batch of new songs that Lange has written and recorded since he and his partner relocated from New York City to Asheville in 2021. A natural progression from the uniquely airy fusion of Tropicalia, krautrock, art pop, and more that has defined the sound of Helado Negro since the earliest days of the project, Phasor possesses an even greater sense of warmth and weightlessness than past works. And it’s hard to imagine that time spent in Asheville, and Marfa, TX — where the album was recorded — didn’t play a role in Phasor’s atmospheric buoyancy. Lange shared his thoughts on how the two settings influenced the creation of Phasor:
“It influenced it a lot. As you know, it's easy to get out into nature here. You drive 20 or 30 minutes and you're already on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That's really exciting. Just the access feels so different, to know that you can just get up and go do that. It's great. And I think that environment has everything to do with whatever your mode of expression is. For me, there's an expansiveness here. There's a lot of space. I don't know that a lot of my process — or a lot of what I create or how I create or how much time I spend creating — is changed necessarily from transitioning from being in New York to here. I think that the type of time that I have, and how I use it… I don't necessarily have some kind of ambient stress or this underlying momentum of productivity looming. It's self-propelled, like it always has been, but I don't necessarily have a lot of distractions that push me into this kind of unhealthy state of feeling like I must do it all.”
If the music Helado Negro has a casual, free-flowing characteristic to it, it’s a reflection of Lange’s own easy-going personality. In speaking about acclimating to life in Asheville, the musician reflected on his openness to change.
“I've always lived in some kind of density. I lived in South Florida, in Miami. I lived in Atlanta [and] in Savannah, Georgia, for a while, and New York [City]. And so not having that immediacy of that type of intensity is definitely helpful on the nervous system. I just don't know where I'll ever end up. I never thought I was going to end up in New York. And then I was in New York for 16 years. And now I'm in Asheville. I’ve tried to make it a point to never say that some place is forever or some place would be never. I kind of just always try to make sure that I'm feeling open and OK with change. I think that's the hardest thing as you get older. It's easier to see yourself settling in in a very rooted kind of way. Even in New York, I saw myself living there forever, and then I wasn't. So I think that's kind of part of the fun part about what I've been starting to see as I've gotten older. I'm excited to be able to know that anything is really possible.”
Lange’s open-mindedness and ability to go with the flow is also an essential aspect of his creative process. Some musicians have a rigid plan when writing and recording new music, and they set out with hard goals that impose an underlying pressure. Helado Negro’s songs develop on a more case-to-case basis, with Lange finding sounds, rhythms, and chord progressions in a number of ways. Sometimes this includes using records, deconstructing sounds, and placing them in an entirely new context.
“I never really approach it in one specific way. But I think the one thing that's very consistent in my work is really showing up for myself in my studio, and making it a point to feel OK to make whatever suits the day. The day that I'm trying to write a song — or feel like I have to finish a new song — is the day that I'm writing the worst song in my life. Not the worst song, but just something that I really don't like. The realization is that you're forcing something. I think there's people who can do that. And I know that to not be true for me. When I get to the studio, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm kind of blessed if a song does appear. But if not, I'm also kind of happy that there was a new thing that I was able to think about or explore.”
It’s no wonder that the records Lange produces are both so spiritually relaxed and creatively imaginative. He has a way of recontextualizing diverse musical ideas into something fresh and free of feeling contrived. As with past releases, listeners of Phasor may hear a kaleidoscopic array of influences, from the vibrant psychedelia of Caetono Veloso to the mutant disco of Arthur Russell, but it all comes together as a distinct byproduct of Lange’s adventurous love of music.
“Growing up, it was Latin American music — a lot of Latin American pop — because my parents are from Ecuador. And growing up in Miami, there was so much electronic music on the radio in the ’80s and ’90s. So that was a big influence. That was kind of embedded in my psyche. And then as I went to college, it was just like this opening of the whole indie world in general, like indie hip-hop and indie rock.”
When asked if there were any specific ideas that he hoped to express to listeners through his latest album, Lange emphasized his appreciation for just how varied the individual experience is.
“For the most part, I don't have a lot of prescriptive asks. I don't really put that on people. I'm not trying to ask people to listen to it in a specific way, because I think that's kind of the biggest part about music that is great in a lot of respects. When you go to a performance, you can't recontextualize it. You go there and you're seeing it in that format. You're seeing it in person, and that's it. There's no changing that. When you have a record, now, at least, you can stream it from anywhere. You can be on the moon. You can be in the desert. You can be hiking and biking or whatever. So you're kind of changing the way you're absorbing it. That, for me, is really cool because I have no control over that.”
He couldn’t be more on point. Just a few days prior to our phone call, I reached a greater appreciation for Phasor while sitting outside in my backyard, under the effects of a mushroom gummy, fully swallowed within the full spectrum of the record’s sonic scope as it reverberated through my headphones. Birds chirped from all around me, wonderfully echoing some of the album’s more organic sounds. Whereas music can often settle to the background as my own intrusive thoughts or distractions battle for attention, in the moment I felt wholly present with the music, much as the aforementioned Pauline Oliveros spoke of.
Local fans will have the opportunity to hear the new songs in a fresh context when Helado Negro graces the stage at Eulogy on Sunday, April 21. For the performance, Lange will be accompanied by Jason Nazary (Anteloper) on drums and Andy Stack (Wye Oak) on bass and guitar. Come with an open mind and dancing shoes, and prepare to float away.
IF YOU GO
Who: Helado Negro with Marem Ladson
When: Sunday, Apr. 21, 8 p.m.
Where: Eulogy, 10 Buxton Ave., burialbeer.com/pages/eulogy
Tickets: $26.45
(Photos by Sadie Culberson)
