Helado Negro is the pseudonym of North American musician Roberto Carlos Lan… Read Full Bio ↴Helado Negro is the pseudonym of North American musician Roberto Carlos Lange (born 1980 in Florida, U.S.A.).

His parents were immigrants from Ecuador, but Roberto grew up in the materialistic lifestyle of southern Florida, U.S.A. Pounding bass beats from passing cars, boom boxes bouncing down the block, and late-night parties provided a foundation for Lange’s interest in sound.

Lange has collaborated with visual and sound artist David Ellis to compose a new series of kinetic sound sculptures. These include typewriters that self-type the lyrics to Grand Master Flash's "The Message" (in rhythm to the song, none-the-less), musical owls drawn out of liquor bottles, owl costumes made out of straws, flying musical birds, motion paintings, and trashcans (full of trash) that are actually living drum machines. Lange has also worked with Paul Duncan and Bear in Heaven as well as famed music producer Guillermo Scott Herren to produce Prefuse 73 and Savath and Savalas as an active member and contributor.

Lange's other projects include ROM, Epstein, as well as Helado Negro. Epstein is Lange's “beats and loops” project, a friendly beast born of the MPC sampler. Epstein's wildly prolific output, including a series of digital releases, full-lengths, and a remix album, is a gauzy, sunny kind of dance music that references DJ mixing, summertime block parties, and mellow compositional noise.

Helado Negro began when Lange moved to New York in 2006. The early group concept grew through projects and experiments Roberto would conduct while recording himself and others in his home studio. Loops, computer synthesis, record samples, and live instruments provided the foundation for the first full-length, Awe Owe, a vibrant, shimmering, full-band Latin psyche-funk-folk epic.

After taking time to create a new series of sound sculptures, release a Helado Negro EP, score one film and begin work on another (based around his animation), Lange recently holed up in a cabin in the Connecticut woods to record the follow-up to Awe Owe. Canta Lechuza is the latest incarnation of Helado Negro and its sound may come as a surprise. Gone is the big collaborative group jam of previous work and in its place is Helado-Negro-as-intimate-solo-project. Canta Lechuza feels like the place it was recorded—its vocals and beats and synth lines coming together to craft a warm, buoyant, comforting electronic dance sound, an effortless, personal thing anchored by Lange's warm, earthy, conversational voice. Based around field recordings and live instrumentation fed through computer processing, Canta Lechuza is a thoroughly modern affair.

Árboles
Helado Negro Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

mirando allá
cogiendo mis
árboles que crecen
atrás de ti...
y tu llegas
a ver a ellos
ya van estar aquí
atrás de ti...

tu ya estas aquí a ver
todo lo que

nos falta ya
atrás de ti...

Overall Meaning

In Helado Negro's song "Arboles," the lyrics describe the act of looking towards the distance and picking trees that grow behind someone. The imagery of the trees growing behind someone represents how we often take for granted the beauty that surrounds us and how we fail to recognize it until someone else points it out. The singer then addresses someone who has arrived, telling them that the trees they were just looking at are now behind them. This can be interpreted as a metaphor for how our perspectives change when we are in the company of others.

The line "tu ya estas aquí a ver todo lo que nos falta ya" translates to "you are already here to see everything that we are missing now." This could mean that the person being addressed has a different perspective, seeing things that the singer cannot, or that the singer is acknowledging their own limitations and is thankful for having someone else to help them see the beauty they may have missed otherwise.

Overall, "Arboles" is a beautiful and introspective song that invites the listener to appreciate the beauty that surrounds them and to be grateful for the people that help them see it.

Line by Line Meaning

mirando allá
Looking over there

cogiendo mis
Picking my

árboles que crecen
Trees that are growing

atrás de ti...
Behind you...

y tu llegas
And you arrive

a ver a ellos
To see them

ya van estar aquí
They will already be here

atrás de ti...
Behind you...

tu ya estas aquí a ver
You are already here to see

todo lo que
All that

nos falta ya
We already lack