Today we watch Helado Negro‘s “Obras Complete” video. The project is helmed by singer/musician Roberto Lange, whose 2016 LP release Private Energy is being reissued in an expanded form by RVNG Intl. on May 5th. While the album’s initial impetus was the 2014 police shooting death of the unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Fergusen, MO, the album would go on to become a cathartic celebration, according to Lange, of “my brownness, my latinidad”. If Brown’s tragic death darkens the shadows around Private Energy, Lange’s urbane, pop-oriented compositions and breezy vocals offer an open-hearted humanity and the hope that social justice will one day prevail.
Sonically, “Obras Complete” collects together the “Obras” Suite–five ambient tracks situated throughout Private Energy. While many of the tracks on the album are centered around Lange’s warm vocal delivery, the “Obras” tracks are a more ambient, electronically driven assertion of the album’s personal narrative. Lange directs the video offering for “Obras Complete” and he uses a horizontally oriented, multi-screen view to present the material. Like the “Obras” suite, and the album itself, the imagery here combines together the abstract and personal into an intriguing series of vantages and perspectives.
