Helado Negro in Berlin
Roberto Carlos Lange, better known as Helado Negro, stopped by in Berlin last night. The packed audience at Neukölln’s Hole44 was in for a real treat. With just bass and drums accompaniment and additional keys/vocals/effects coming from what looked like an Akai Midi, Helado Negro mostly played music from his brilliant new album “Phasor“, which came out a couple of weeks ago and received five paws from Gina. With pieces like “Es Una Fantasía”, trimmed down to more dramatic heights, there were a few moments of calmness and melancholy during an otherwise pretty off-kilter show. There is this highly attractive quirkiness in some of his compositions, and there is downright, unfiltered sincerity on tracks like the beautiful “I Just Want To Wake Up With You” or “Best For You And Me”.
He also threw in a few pieces from his excellent 2021 LP “Far In”, like the melancholic dancer “Gemini And Leo”, the equally mesmerizing “There Must Be A Song Like You”, or the immensely cathartic “Hometown Dream”. Singing in English and Spanish throughout the evening, he also had the audience singing along to his exuberant “Pais Nublado” from his 2019 album “This Is How You Smile”. Always riding along in his music is this soul-, jazz-, and folk-adjacent groove that matches with his very untraditional approach to create this unique indie-avant-pop. This was really a trip.
Helado Negro is playing Warsaw tonight with more European stops following in London, Paris, Brussels, Luxemburg, Utrecht and Stockholm before he goes on a short US tour at the end of April starting in his new adopted home in Asheville, North Carolina, on April 21st.
