Later this week, Helado Negro (aka Roberto Carlos Lange) will be embarking on a headlining tour through the US and Europe, supporting his most recent album, Far In. Released last year, Far In proved to be a journey into the mind that took us through the locales that Lange traversed in creating the skin and bones of the album: Marfa, Berlin, Brooklyn, and Asheville. It’s fitting that not only will he finally get to revisit the areas surrounding the album’s beginnings, but that he also released one last single ahead of the tour that seemingly calls out his nomadic creationism, “Ya No Estoy Aquí.”
Lange said in a statement that “Ya No Estoy Aqui” (which translates to “I’m No Longer Here”) is about “loneliness and alienation.” He added, “It’s about being lost within yourself and not knowing who you are. Making this song was catharsis; it was a way to get this all out and feel the texture of new perspectives.”
His vocals in Spanish cozy up against a woozy, vibrating beat that’s downright comforting. The song has a surrealist lean, as if it’s begging the question of how you can be somewhere but nowhere at the same time? The video depicts Lange’s single eye and mouth moving through time and space, adding to the transportive feel of the tune.
Lange added that the song’s title was inspired by the recent indie film of the same name. “This movie moved me in ways that nothing else has moved in a long time,” Lange says. “It is about a young man from Monterrey, Mexico, who gets into trouble and is forced to leave for his safety to New York. The language barrier, the cultural isolation, and his characteristics spiral him more towards his loneliness and isolation. Music was his only solace. Songs that he would dance to by himself and disappear into the memory of being somewhere else with the people he missed and loved.”
Watch the video for Helado Negro’s “Ya No Estoy Aquí” above.