Stream: Big Black Delta, ‘Canary’

on
0
Big Black Delta (Photo by Josh Biroux)

By the time people hear the new Big Black Delta album “4” in its entirety — mark July 10 on our calendar for that — there might be a whole new music genre: Hardcore Bates.

Fans of industrial, techno, metal, darkwave, ’80s synth-pop, ambient music and even cinematic balladry will want to hop on for a 47-minute ride and visit the ephemeral places mastermind Jonathan Bates takes you. “I can’t stay in one ‘genre’ because that makes life impossibly boring,” he says of the album. “I’d rather be honest with myself, and if that can be of service to you, then I’m happy as a pig in shit.”

Today brings the release of the new single “Canary,” a crucible of hopped-up-on-something synths that boils over in under 2 1/2 minutes. In the announcement, Bates says the song was inspired by his synesthesia. “In elementary school in Miami, all the kids would meet on the playground before school started. Groups of mostly girls, and a few brave boys, would do stomp/clap routines and compete with each other,” he explains. “Even then, when I closed my eyes I saw crazy lights, colors, and shapes to their routines. Now that I’m older and have the ability, I made a song that does that times a million. With headphones, if I could show what I see, you’d get sunburned. In Sammy Hagar terms.”

The new single arrives a month after he announced the album by releasing “Lord Only Knows,” a song he says “starts like Whitesnake and ends like Liberace.” Adam Osgood directs the video for the song.

||| Stream: “Canary”

||| Also: Watch the video for “Lord Only Knows”

||| Previously: “Summoner,” interview (on the Mellowdrone reunion), “WHORU812,” “Steer the Canyon,” “Huggin & Kissin”