This Is How You Smile

Floridian-born, Brooklyn-resident Roberto Carlos Lange is the model of a modern journeyman musician: finding his own way to his own voice outside the cycles of hype and diktats of genre. He’d been working at combining his own Ecuadorian heritage with classic singer-songwriter styles and leftfield production techniques over copious releases on his own and as a contributor to Savath & Savalas for nigh on a decade before signing to RVNG Intl. On his RVNG albums, and particularly this second one, you can hear true maturity: a delicate balance between personal and political, artsy and rootsy, Spanish and English. A gentle record but one that can hit home hard.