Sound / Concert

Helado Negro + Jackie Mendoza

Dreamy synth-folk with social charge: American-Ecuadorian singer-songwriter Helado Negro presents his sixth album.

TIMING
20:00 doors Soetezaal
20:15 Jackie Mendoza
21:00 Helado Negro
22:30 end

Seated concert • No drinks inside

After a world tour with Beirut, American-Ecuadorian singer-songwriter Helado Negro returns to Belgium with his sixth (and, according to Pitchfork, best) album This Is How You Smile (RVNG Intl.). A Latino grown up in Miami, his dreamy synth pop gems muse about identity and power relations in American society. Helado Negro counters oppression with a positive story of love, self-respect and imagination. His vibrating baritone effortlessly switches between English and Spanish, and meanders from rich orchestrations and silky synths to lo-fi guitars and folky horns. Think Devendra Banhart 2.0 or a sunlit Sufjan Stevens.

Helado Negro will be joined on this European tour by young talent Jackie Mendoza. The Californian musician and vocalist with Mexican roots recently released her first EP LuvHz, a mesmerizing trip through 80s pop, latin rhythms and tons of reverb - the touch of Rusty Santos, who also produced Panda Bear’s new album.

Sounds like: Devendra Banhart, Beirut, Sufjan Stevens

“Roberto Carlos Lange’s sixth and best album as Helado Negro deepens and expands upon the imagistic nature of his lyrics and cosmic synth-folk. It is a sublime, masterful piece of music.”

Pitchfork about Helado Negro (Best New Music)

“By the time you’re through to the end of the album, Negro’s precise refusal to have bullied you with his ideas means you’re happy to return to the beginning and let that sunlight in again. Central heating for kids. Lovely.”

The Wire Magazine about Helado Negro

“A blur can be more tantalizing than something fully legible. Jackie Mendoza’s ‘Seahorse,’ ...melts the edges of her vocals with echoes, reverb and stereo panning, while keyboards and guitars float in and drift around her. There’s a pop song near the surface, but it stays just out of reach.”

The New York Times about Jackie Mendoza