Today on Ecléctico you're listening to Helado Negro, the performing name of singer, musician, songwriter, and artist Roberto Carlos Lange, originally from south Florida, born to Ecuadorian immigrants, and based in Asheville, North Carolina.
"This song was inspired by the film of the same name, which means, 'I’m No Longer Here'," begins Ecléctico guest DJ and Citizen Vinyl Content Director Cass Herrington about today's song. "Lange says his song, like the movie, speaks to the sense of isolation and fragmented identity often felt by those who’ve immigrated or live far from home. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, Lange’s reverberating, lush soundscape offers a sense of comfort, like a soft blanket to wrap yourself in."
“Ya No Estoy Aquí” by Helado Negro (2022)
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Today's edition of Ecléctico is produced in partnership with Citizen Vinyl, a record pressing factory, record store, and cafe in Asheville, North Carolina.
Go deeper with this excerpt from and a link to an article by Adrian Spinelli in Uproxx:
“Ya No Estoy Aqui”...is about “loneliness and alienation.” Helado Negro (aka Roberto Carlos Lange) added [in a statement], “It’s about being lost within yourself and not knowing who you are. Making this song was catharsis; it was a way to get this all out and feel the texture of new perspectives.”
His vocals in Spanish cozy up against a woozy, vibrating beat that’s downright comforting. The song has a surrealist lean, as if it’s begging the question of how you can be somewhere but nowhere at the same time? The video depicts Lange’s single eye and mouth moving through time and space, adding to the transportive feel of the tune.
Lange added that the song’s title was inspired by the recent indie film of the same name. “This movie moved me in ways that nothing else has moved in a long time,” Lange says. “It is about a young man from Monterrey, Mexico, who gets into trouble and is forced to leave for his safety to New York. The language barrier, the cultural isolation, and his characteristics spiral him more towards his loneliness and isolation. Music was his only solace. Songs that he would dance to by himself and disappear into the memory of being somewhere else with the people he missed and loved.”
