Cutups by Roberto Carlos Lange

Cutups are a series of works by Roberto Carlos Lange (Helado Negro) created by processing audio recordings of orphaned sounds found on his hard drive. These recordings highlight the piano as a sound source.

"There's an idea of sound composting that happens on my hard drives, i have so many recordings of improvisations, performances and general noodling that it all come's together over time becoming some sort of nutrient for other work. All these pieces are from 2010-2016, they have a similarity in aesthetic and process."

Roberto Carlos Lange was the recipient of the the Joyce Award in 2015 and performs music under the name Helado Negro as well."

Tracks:

A1 - Was made during a residency in rural Massachusetts, I would circle around the wooded property during October and November of 2010 stepping on dead leaves, branches and listening to the water running to the pond. There were some man made metal sculptures and people hanging around, at night I would return to my studio and play back the recordings in the room then set my Arp Odyssey or Korg Ms-10 to sustain a note and play piano ideas over them. There was a piano in the studio I would record stabs of me playing then randomly loop sections. After long recorded takes I would chop up the recordings and format music into multiple sound clips triggering them until I got what I was looking for. In the end I put it back on the recorder went outside and inflated a giant 32' weather balloon, by this time it was late November and cold, and I used an Atari Video Synthesizer to respond to the sound and projected the video on the balloon until late night. Then sleep. I dedicated this piece to my friend Matt Mascotte who passed away the following year.


B1 - These are piano recordings from a session I was working on with my friend Sufjan in 2014 that were never used, they are completely abstracted from the original intention. It's recording from a space that doesn't exist anymore. We spent so much time together recording and working on music that this feels like a coat I can put on when I couldn't remember what it is I'm trying to figure out. The sounds are all time stretched pianos with lots of granular effects, softened and hazy but ghostly and permanent.

B2 - Is taken from a recording session in 2013 I did with my friend Devendra Barnhart, We were recording a cover of a song that never was released but there were so many piano recordings and takes between him and I that were so sparse and patient. I can tell from listening how much of it was trying to figure out what to play and thinking between the notes instead of regular memorized confidence of what was going to happen next. Its a special one for me.

B3 - Are recordings from a session I did with my friend Matt Crum in Atlanta in 2005, we had the piano mic’d in maybe the most beautiful of ways, something about all the tones we were able to achieve was really remarkable. This song is a play on hearing the resonance of the space left when the sound residue sticks in your ear.

B4 - Is a sample from a record I looped in my MPC 2000 then into Ableton. It's all heavily effected with filters and delays. A fair amount of time stretching too. Im always thinking about pianos and voices being so percussive and tonal at the same time the relationship between the two instruments has always been some of my favorite places to wander and discover ideas.

B5 - I Used an Electro Harmonix Looper to capture and overdub really simple guitar noodling, mostly abstract nonsense. I recorded myself evolving and continually noodling in higher and lower keys. I effected it all in postproduction with Ableton using some granular spectral filters plugins. I added some more sound activity from my vibraphones pulsing and banging quickly. It's a mini orchestra playing and playing.


The cover art is by Kristi Sword. She is a visual artist that uses material from her daily work and transforms them with long time staking process' to produce forms alien to where it originated. The cover is a ball chain that is part of a long series of drawings she has been doing since 2007. She uses wax and lead to make rubbings of these amorphous shapes from the ball chain, she shoves scoots and gently aligns the ball chain under the paper into a new improvised composition. Each one is so delicately made and gently produced. They are meditations and reflections, I interpret them as sound activity a form of dialog and vibration.

cassettes are available at http://importantrecords.com/imprec/sauna32

robertolange.com