Helder Aragão, born in 1966, Propriá, in Sergipe, better known as DJ Dolores, is a Brazilian DJ who began his career as one of the participants of the mangue movement, as a designer. Growing up with his father as a musician, he always had access to jazz, choro and tropicalia music. In his adolescence, he got into punk culture, which later eventually led him to getting involved in the manguebeat movement in Recife as a graphic designer and eventually beginning to work professinally as a musician and producer in 1997.
He is also the founder of Orchestra Santa Massa, as well as other live music projects such as Aparelhagem, Stank, Frevotron and Blind Date with the late Nana Vasconcelos. With these projects and as solo artist, he has toured Europe and North America, playing at festivals like Glastonbury, Womad, Copenhagen Jazz, Montreal Jazz Festival, Roskilde and Paleo. His music has been released on Far Out Recordings, YB Music, Sterns Music, Ziriguiboom and others. He has remixed Gilberto Gil, Marisa Monte, Naná Vasconcelos, Otto, Fernanda Porto, and os Tribalistas. His work is heavily present on Kafundó – Stank with Robertinho de Recife on Vol. 1,redefining frevo in theFrevotron project with Mestre Spok and Yuri Queiroga on Vol. 3, and a collaboration with Nonfofo Gang on Vol. 2. DJ Dolores is active as a composer for dance and theater and especially, film, having written and produced sound tracks for some of the most significant cinema releases in the last years.
He is a meticulous worker of magic with samples, while also bringing many collaborators into the production process. His work involves the creation and elaboration of electronic beats, bass lines, often with urban jamaican diaspora flows, mixed with traditional sounds from the Brazilian northeast – like embolada, ciranda and coco. It is the juxtaposition of traditional, rural northeastern music presented along side electronic and synthetic sounds. For Helder, electronic music is the mode of production, a process of instrumentation and not an aesthetic that defines his work. The process of creation is part of the concept, where an album is completely programmed and created in the studio using software and electronic drums. Later, musicians of different styles and backgrounds are invited to contribute their unique ideas to give form to the project.