August is here. I‘m looking forward to all of your entries!
I‘ve noticed several people have fallen off. Remember: you can still post your entries for previous months if you find some more time now that it’s summer and some of you might have some time off.
Alright, if @Wolf-Rami isn’t ready yet, I will finally be the first one to post 
.
Helado Negro – Private Energy (2016)
This album is in many ways a continuation of my last pick. It has helped me find myself after a breakup, and it has been with me ever since. Helado Negro has become a constant in my musical library ever since, and I consider Roberto Carlos Lange a role model both as a musician and a human being.
This entry could have been any one of Helado Negro’s albums since 2016. “Far In” was a welcome refuge during the pandemic and impressed me with its live drumming. “Phasor” seems like the late career achievement that might be underappreciated at the time of release but shows every facette of Lange’s songwriting and production at its best. And then we have “This is How You Smile”, the most melancholic and stripped-down album, and the consensus pick for Helado Negro’s best release to date.
The latter got me into Lange’s music in the first place, when I discovered the album shortly after its release in March 2019. I liked it immediately, but it took several months to grow and reveal itself as an exceptional piece of art and not just a chill album to listen to in the background. As I’ve already mentioned, my relationship was in the middle of breaking down during that time, and this unintrusive kind of music was well suited for going through that episode in my life. We broke up in the summer, and I moved to another city and lived alone for the first time in my life. What followed was an intense period of re-discovering myself that also involved a bit of re-defining myself. And I was listening to a lot of music during that time, after neglecting this passion for several months or even years, partly because my partner didn’t want me to listen to music in our apartment anymore, partly because I often felt exhausted and started listening to podcasts instead. So here I was, alone in my one room apartment, listening to “This is How You Smile”, thinking about the relationship that had just ended, and about what lessons I could draw from the last several years. It was great, because you could just put on the album and let your mind drift, or you could listen to it closely and discover new details in the production. It became increasingly clear that Helado Negro is not just a less quirky Devendra Banhart (something, I‘m ashamed to say, I had initially thought).
At some point, I decided to check out some of Lange’s other albums, and I was impressed by the amount and diversity of his output. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he is as much an electronic artist and producer as he is a traditional songwriter. That was one thing I immediately loved about “Private Energy”, which is much more synth pop than its successor. “Personas Facil” was probably the first song on the album that really impressed me, with its many layers of synths drifting into eternity. There are also all the interludes between songs that seem like little sound experiments made up of field recordings, samples and snippets of instruments. But the tracks that stand out the most on “Private Energy” are catchy songs like “Transmission Listen”, “Young, Latin and Proud” or “It’s My Brown Skin”. And all of them are full of great synth lines and examples of how to use an LFO effectively in an actual song. You can listen to Helado Negro records without giving a damn about gear or production, but if you’re interested, there’s plenty to learn from here. The lists of gear used alone are a reason to buy any Helado Negro album on vinyl. Or just look at the tour photo of his latest side project:
At the same time, he’s perfectly fine playing an OG Minilogue on stage. Whatever is in service of the music seems to be fine for Lange, and that’s exactly what his albums sound like.
What made this album special for me was the eponymous theme of “Private Energy”. Lange wrote these songs as a direct reaction to concrete events that are far from my life as a white dude in Germany. Obviously, I don’t share his experience of living in the US as a Latin-American in the pre-Trump years. In short, I wasn’t “Young, Latin and Proud”. But I did go through a period of losing myself a bit during the previous years, and I certainly made several experiences during the end of my relationship that didn’t exactly make me more confident. Yet I was quickly getting in touch with myself, and I started to really appreciate and love myself again. And that’s exactly what “Private Energy” is about. I needed someone to lend me a hand and lift me up, and Lange did just that. Listening to him responding to people who think his skin makes him lesser than with „no, that’s actually my superpower“ is inspiring. It’s a testament to his qualities as a songwriter that he managed to write these songs that are distinctly about his very personal experience in a way that they are universal and relatable at the same time. And whether it is through his music or Bandcamp messages, Helado Negro lets people know that it’s really just about being nice to each other and sharing our love. I’ve tried to adopt the same approach over the last years, telling positive people in my life what I appreciate about them, and staying away from negative people.
In that sense, “Private Energy” (and Helado Negro as an artist) reminds me of several other albums that I’ve picked so far. It has that spirit of fostering friendship and community that I appreciate about the Mars Volta or Yo La Tengo. It carries that message of trying to draw something positive from hardship that lies at the heart of “Funeral”. And it’s almost as fun as “It’s Album Time”, despite being introspective and melancholic. Maybe this combination of many things I love about music is the reason that Helado Negro might be the artist I’ve listened to and looked up to the most over the last seven years. It also helps that Lange just consistently delivers great albums every two to three years. And that it works just as well for playing in the background while zoning out as it does for deep listening.
I think that’s all I have to say about this album. I have a less complicated relationship to it than I have to most of my other picks, so there‘s less to dig into. For consistency’s sake, I will briefly talk a bit about some favorite moments and characteristics of the album:
• The whole album is full of hits that will keep playing in your head for days.
• „Transmission Listen“ might be my favorite song, it‘s such an accurate description of how two people that are made for each other almost mess it up because of bad communication. It’s also one of the few sexy songs I know that’s not cringe or #metoo.
• The bridge on „Tartamudo“ is incredible. Everything slows down, a lofi/bitcrushed chord is hit, Roberto sings „porque soy una mujer“ – and I‘m melting away
• When the vocals stop on „Personas Facil“ and the pitch-bendy-drifty synths are let loose into a wash of delay
• The vocals often have repetitive moments that Roberto sings with the enthusiasm of a little child. I love singing these songs and that might have taught me some things about how I could use my voice.
• The lyrics are sometimes Spanish, sometimes English. Thinking about it, this might have encouraged me to write an album that’s half English and half German.
That’s all I have to say – share the love!
Quintessential track:
Transmission Listen
Could have also been:
Can‘t say yet because many potential picks might still make my list
I’m travelling. Hence, I keep this very short and might augment my post later. My album that defined me for the month of August is
The Clash - London Calling
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nY4cg7X3mkJovrJebYc8GlS82gAcjsX_U&si=y6wQLoTS7lF4vS1j
Funki Porcini’s hed phone sex
This is one of those right albums at the right times. I encountered the album during what felt like a prolonged trip to a personal purgatory and yet I still enjoy listening to Funki Porcini’s albums even though I am now in a much better head space than I was during those mid 90s years when I first heard this album.
(A banal aside: There is artwork for this album that seems more common that consists of a hot dog that is roughly burning as though it is a lit cigar. The artwork on the album I initially purchased is the artwork depicted above.)
Luscious Jackson – “Fever In Fever Out”
This is an odd choice for me. A few months ago I wouldn’t have even remembered this album. It’s from 1996, and it’s an indie pop album, I guess — an all-female band stirring up a mixture of rock, pop, hip-hop and other influences.
At the time, I was still at school, had just gotten my driver’s license, and was still a metalhead. Sometime around then I switched my Metal Hammer subscription to a Visions subscription (a German alternative music magazine). Maybe it was a review, or maybe it was the single “Naked Eye” — either way, I was in love with the band. It didn’t hurt that they were associated with the Beastie Boys (the album came out on their label).
Now, in 2026, I’ve rediscovered them. I don’t know what’s more surprising: why I still like them, or why my 30-years-younger self liked them in the first place.
It was the mixture of samples, great singing and songwriting that got me. It’s not as danceable or sample-driven as some of their other records, but songs like “Why Do I Lie” or “Water Your Garden” moved something in me. I think they still sound great 30 years later. There are some deeper cuts too, like “Take A Ride,” with a jam-like vibe and great guitar work. Jill Cunniff’s singing voice still holds up — they did a lot of harmony vocals, but it’s her voice I love most.
Unfortunately, I lost touch with them around the time “Electric Honey” came out. Turns out there was more I missed: Jill Cunniff released a solo record in 2007, more rooted in indie pop but a great summer listen. Luscious Jackson also put out one last, crowdfunded record in 2013 — I’m still figuring out if I like it. I need to Listen to it more often.
In 2023, their former keyboardist Vivian Trimble passed away. The chances of another album are slim now, which is kind of sad. In a fairer world, they would have gotten much bigger. But for me, they’re still a legacy. They showed boys like me that girl groups can be cool without being soft or uncool.
