Twelve years after he began publishing music under the name Helado Negro and 22 years after leaving South Florida to pursue a career in the multidisciplinary arts, Roberto Carlos Lange will return to a city that has left a lasting mark on his creative spirit, when he takes the stage at the North Beach Bandshell on Saturday November 20th.
The upcoming concert at the Miami Beach open-air stage, which will also be supported by the local band Seafoam Walls, will be Lange’s only headlining appearance in 2021. Fittingly, those in attendance will be among the first to hear the talented songwriter and musician perform new material from his latest studio album, Far In, which was released to great acclaim last month on independent British label 4AD.
Far In has earned Lange praise from media such as NPR to the New York Times. Far In consists of 15 colorful and lively tracks squeezed into a 68-minute running time. It is Lange’s seventh studio album, nicknamed Helado Negro, and features contributions from an eclectic mix of guests from across the indie music community, including Luis Del Valle (Buscabulla). , Opal Hoyt (Zenizen), Jason Trammell (Sinkane), John Herndon (Tortoise) and former Kanye West backing dancer / singer-songwriter Kacy Hill, to name a few.
Now a member of the 4AD family after decades of releasing music through independent imprints like Asthmatic Kitty and RVNGIntl, Lange finds himself on a list of respected, nonconforming, cross-genre artists like Deerhunter, US Girls and Future Islands who all like Long, niche fan bases have created with no mainstream success.
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“4AD has such a unique history,” said Lange on the phone during a recent conversation with the New Times. “It was exciting because they are just very generous with the way they give space to the artist, at least for me. They were really generous with the way, like, ‘We want to be part of your world as much as you want to participate “. in our.’ It was like a collaboration in so many ways and there weren’t any clumsy things, they just wanted to know what I was doing and what I wanted to do and it felt really easy to do. ”
For Lange, who grew up in the Fort Lauderdale area in the 1980s and 90s, the upcoming show will be the first time the veteran multi-instrumentalist can fully explore his new material in a live setting in front of fans. He returned to the stage earlier this year for his first appearance since March 2020 with a set at the Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, and last month made an intimate, private appearance in New York City to celebrate the arrival of his new album.
“The festival was somehow different, it was the first time I played again. It was just a different atmosphere,” says Lang of his return to the stage after a pandemic-related year without performances. “This is really the first time I’ve been playing this music from the new record live while the festival was more of a ‘best of’. In all respects this is the first and last show of this year. I was really looking forward to it. but also somehow wanting the right scenario. ”
Long was in Marfa, Texas when the concert industry closed in March 2020. He and his partner, visual artist Kristi Sword, were working on a multimedia project commissioned by the nearby art center Ballroom Marfa. They ended up staying in Marfa for six months, during which Lange was able to use the West Texas backdrop to develop songs that would end on Far In, including “Aguas Frias”, “Agosto” and “Thank You for Ever.” On completion his astrologically inspired feel-good single “Gemini and Lion”.
“It was a big and sobering thing for me to lose a lot of work in the past year,” he openly admits as he discusses the impact the pandemic has had on his career path. “To be honest, to lose all of these tours, to lose all of these shows and to lose a lot.”
While Lange has seen some mid-life successes in the music industry thanks to Far In and his predecessor in 2019 This Is How You Smile, he has found himself at a crossroads due to the lack of work. Earlier this year he decided to leave his longtime home in New York City and move to Asheville, North Carolina.
“I think I’m really looking forward to getting back from a tour in the middle of the night and I don’t have to unload anything. In New York, when you come home from a tour, you sometimes have so many things and you have to lug everything up three or four flights of stairs, “says Lange with a smile.” For me, the move is a change of perspective. It felt like a good one Time to have a change and live in different places, it doesn’t necessarily change my perspective on what I want to do – it’s just the opportunity to be somewhere different.
“I really thought I would live there forever,” he adds.
Helado Negros Show at the North Beach Bandshell was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming.
Photo by Nathan Bajar
Life as a working artist is no stroll through Central Park. Lange emphasizes that he had the feeling that he was only living in the city 100 days a year, with all the tours. New York is where he started his career. After graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2003, he worked in post-production of sounds for the film and television scene of South Florida, where the first sparks of musical inspiration flared in his creative mind.
“I grew up with so many people from so many different places, and Miami is in many ways like the capital of Latin America,” he says of the formative years in Lauderhill and Davie with his first-generation Ecuadorian-American parents. “So all these people from different places were in my house all the time, saying different words in different languages.”
However, Lange did not learn artistic expression at home.
“I didn’t grow up with it,” he says. “My family didn’t go to museums. My family isn’t a musician, an artist or anything. My parents worked.”
But his ears soon picked up on the then-new 1980s sounds of early electronica, produced on groundbreaking music technologies like TB-303 bass synthesizers and Roland TR-808 drum machines. (“Those were noises that came from every car that rolled down the street and that definitely got into my subconscious,” Lange said of his previous experience during a recent appearance on Aquarium Drunkard’s Transmissions podcast.)
“My first mind-expanding experience was through music, and especially in Miami,” Lange told the New Times. “I can’t remember the name of the club – maybe it was Beat Camp. It must have been ’97 or ’98 and I remember there was such a ragga jungle room downstairs and I was really into jungle and ragga because my brother had brought some CDs from Europe and one of them was a ragga – Jungle CD from 1994. I thought, ‘This is amazing, I wanted to hear this live somewhere and see how these MCs just do their thing, this instrumental music.’
“I was drawn to this music and I can see that there are other people out there who are interested,” he continues. “Then later, when I left high school and went to college, I would come back a lot and some other friends I already knew were part of this community that got involved in the places I used to hear from in Miami-based labels like Schematic, Counterflow, Beta Bodega, Merck Records and Chocolate Industries. These were like beacons for me because there is all this amazing achievement and community that people there generated, shared and brought to the place where I come from. ”
Still, the music didn’t begin to manifest itself until after college, through early projects like ROM, which Lange founded with his friend Matt Crum. And even after moving to New York City, he returned to South Florida several times around 2006 to work on various art projects.
“I’m glad that a lot more attention is now being paid to artists who work in South Florida,” said Lange of the scene that has blossomed in the Miami area in recent years. “I think this is really important. I think there’s an obsession with that [the idea that] New York or Los Angeles or Chicago are the only places where things like this can happen. The world is really beautiful everywhere and there is so much art everywhere. I would always hope and wish that South Florida has these communities and vibrant scenes to visit and experience. ”
Lange’s show on November 20th was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming. If they listen carefully, those in attendance may be able to hear his earliest musical influences sprayed throughout the performance – influences that have been ingrained forever in Lange’s artistic subconscious since his first mind-expanding experience in Miami many years ago.
Helado negro. With seafoam walls. 8 p.m. Saturday, November 20, North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 786-453-2897; www.northbeachbandshell.com. Tickets cost $ 34.50 to $ 60.
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