The 2020 was a year in which Roberto Carlos Lange, the musician known as Helado Negro, planned to relax and enjoy himself for at least a while. He had finished his tour and planned to go to the Texas desert for a few days to accompany his partner, the plastic artist Kristi Sword.
Roberto and Kristi came to Marfa for two weeks, but due to the pandemic they ended up confined in that place for six months.
The landscapes, the stillness and the harshness of the desert inspired “Far in”, the new album by the artist of Ecuadorian descent, and which he is now promoting on a tour that is taking you to more than 30 cities in the country.
“Marfa is a small town” Roberto said in a recent interview. “The artistic community and the environment are very exciting and the wildlife is different”.
This is how his album ended up influenced by the sounds of nature, and with songs with names like “Aguas frias ”, “Thank You For Ever” and “August”. In this last cut he collaborated with Buscabulla, the Puerto Rican tropical synth duo that was in charge of imprinting the Caribbean touch.
The confinement, he said, “gave me the opportunity to really think about what it means to be isolated, but also in the things that keep you together”.
In addition to the new album, Helado Negro recently released the video clip “I’m not here anymore”, which he directed himself. It is a theme about loneliness and isolation, and that inspired a tape of the same name that follows the life of a boy from Monterrey, Mexico, who emigrates to New York and who spends his days listening to cumbia as a way to connect. with his friends and loved ones he left behind.
This song “is about being alone inside yourself and not knowing who you are; making this song was cathartic, a way to get all this out and feel the texture of new perspectives”.
Helado Negro’s tour ends this week in the United States and continues its tour of the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain, Germany, Portugal and other European countries until the end of August.