Asthmatic Kitty Records

My Brightest Diamond

Shark Remixes Vol 3 – Roberto C. Lange

Catalog: AKR039C • Cover Art: David Stith
Release date: March 31, 2009

The music of My Brightest Diamond lends itself well to remixes. Shara Worden’s exquisite voice provides the perfect lead (or backing track) for any sort of deconstructing or restructuring of her original music. My Brightest Diamond’s debut Bring Me the Workhorse (2006) was given the remix treatment in the form of a remix compilation entitled Tear It Down (2007). This collection is evidence to the strength of her compositions and voice, as remixed by such artists as Murcof, Alias, Lusine, Golden Chains among others. While Asthmatic Kitty and My Brightest Diamond had no regrets about the Tear It Down project, when the time came to talk remixes for A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, they both realized a need for a more cohesive and conceptual project. They brought on four remixers (Alfred Brown, DM Stith, Son Lux and Roberto Carlos Lange (Epstein, Savath and Savalas, ROM) and commissioned them to each create a separate EP of remixed material. The third of these EPs is by Roberto C. Lange.

The son of Ecuadorean immigrants, Roberto Carlos Lange was born in South Florida in 1980. Lange’s childhood was suffused with tropical heat, humidity and hurricanes all of which refracted the rich colors and sounds of the various Latin cultures establishing roots at that time throughout much of southern Florida. Pounding bass beats from passing cars, boom boxes bouncing down the block and late-night parties at home called “peñas” provided a deep foundation for Lange’s interest in sound and a lifelong thirst for discovering the unlimited variety of objects used to produce music. Today, Lange’s musical compositions are adjusted and aligned with the moment in which they exist; they are often constructed through improvised performances and accidental happenings. Over the last four years Lange has collaborated with prominent visual and sound artist, David Ellis, to compose a new series of kinetic sound sculptures. Currently, Lange is working with famed music producer Guillermo Scott Herren on a solo project called “Prefuse 73” and has joined Savath and Savalas as an active member and contributor.

“A lot of times deep concepts, meanings and definitions of why things are made become the extra baggage that is irrelevant to whats in front of you,” Roberto answers when asked to describe his remixes. “The sound coming from these remixes are reactions to the source it came from. Shara’s voice and her song writing lead me to a quiet and calm place. everything that came from that place was like painting by numbers but the numbers kept changing. It its a delicate place to walk when you’re contributing and manipulating someone’s way of communicating.” It is through these experiences that Roberto has filtered the voice and music of My Brightest Diamond to create what sounds like a transmission from warm weather dreams, peaceful and floating but rooted in a tradition of Latin percussion, and unrooted by cosmic automation and outerspace sensibility.