This is How You Smile, the sixth full-length from Roberto Carlos Lange (aka Helado Negro), is a memory of an album — hazy, breezy and slightly faded, the way history is recollected in your head. As Lange's songs have gotten progressively more organic over the years, his latest finds the Miami multi-instrumentalist making a soft landing upon the apex of intimate music.
Across 12 tracks, Lange lays down beds of spacious piano, heartbeat bass and warm electronic beats, but what make tracks like the paper funk of "Fantasma Vaga" and the soulful "Running" so satisfying is the way Lange propels rhythms and melodies in the most natural manner.
But the uniform feel of the album doesn't mean that Lange refuses to get strange, as "November 7" is a beautifully constructed experimental piece, while closer "My Name Is for My Friends" may be the most joyous sound collage ever put to wax. Helado Negro has managed to craft an emotionally powerful classic with This is How You Smile.
(RVNG Intl.)Across 12 tracks, Lange lays down beds of spacious piano, heartbeat bass and warm electronic beats, but what make tracks like the paper funk of "Fantasma Vaga" and the soulful "Running" so satisfying is the way Lange propels rhythms and melodies in the most natural manner.
But the uniform feel of the album doesn't mean that Lange refuses to get strange, as "November 7" is a beautifully constructed experimental piece, while closer "My Name Is for My Friends" may be the most joyous sound collage ever put to wax. Helado Negro has managed to craft an emotionally powerful classic with This is How You Smile.