Helado Negro: “Paz a Ti”
Intl all-star Helado Negro returns with Island Universe Story One, the first in a planned series of conceptual releases. The exact nature of their connection is unclear at this point, but if IUSO is any indication of what’s to come, we’re impatient to find out. The quarter-inch tape that the EP was recorded on not only lends the recording its blissful, mile-deep bass tones, but also gives our hero a chance to craft the tape loops and manipulations that add a diversity of textures, while giving a compellingly unsteady quality to his patented grooves. Along with the incorporation of more organic sounds, these new idiosyncratic grafts serve to charm, even as they add body and complexity to the compositions.
“Paz a Ti” will seem stylistically familiar to fans of last year’s Canta Lechuza: the crooning vocals, charmingly simple leads, filter tweaks, and carefully shaped dubby bass are all there. Where the previous album successfully played off the tension in the relationship between Roberto’s ever so slightly effected vocals and the more frigid instruments, here we find his vocals buoyed by that same sort of icy atmospherics as both dodge in between staccato splashes of synth. For all its direct ties back to previous material, this track represents another step forward in Helado Negro’s smart pop odyssey.
Island Universe Story One is out now on Asthmatic Kitty Records and up for streaming and download on Bandcamp. And before you ask, those yarn anemones are fused playdough pushed through a screen, courtesy of Kristi Sword and some design help from NRML
Written by Luke Carrell
