Big Black Delta | Trágame Tierra | Rating: 8/11 |
Release Date: April 22, 2016
Safe to say that Jonathan Bates aka Big Black Delta is adept at whipping up a citrusy beverage post-fucked up shit: there was that time when a confrontation with an armed thug became a musical impetus. But the Mellowdrone man has had a particularly trying past couple of years losing his father to a stroke, a best friend to cancer and a career’s worth of gear stolen from his storage unit. As the album title might suggest, Bates probably identified with the emotional sensation of being swallowed up by the chaos, but Trágame Tierra manages to find some order, albeit a highly chaotic kind.
Trágame Tierra is an everything including the kitchen sink-record: the sound of the cosmos processed and distorted through filters and synths, layered with percussive bass and beats cathartically darting from a hundred strobe lights and a Nintendo game. Reign it in? No: Let it out, bro. “A heart without a chest” Bates croons in the album’s dream sequence opener, “H.A.”: appropriate considering that he’s operating slightly further outside of the construct of his “typical” musical borders. Because we all totally saw the hookup with everybody’s favorite 80s pop princess coming, right? Wrong and the conversational, yet detached, back and forth with Debbie Gibson on “RCVR” is weird lightning. As albums go, this is no simple, mindless digestible. Thought – and perhaps a dash of patience – are your friends when you journey through the sound mind of Bates but the rewards are there even when Bates, himself, is taking something of a back seat. See Camila Grey as she slams down some feminine authority on the remix/dance floor worthy “Overlord” and Kimbra’s vocal siren slink of reverse temptation in “Bitten by the Apple.” It’s Trágame Tierra’s alternating strains of euphoria (“Let’s Go Home,” “Steer The Canyon”) underlying a heavy heart (“It’s OK,” “H.A.”) that deliver a grand yet cool to the touch, electronic spectrum of emotion. It’s doubtful that “create a singularly cohesive body of work” was on Bates’ list of things to do when this album was taking shape, yet by the time the 10-minute closer/title track takes you home (with what feels like bathing in one long, extended celestial note), Bates has cycled you through an experience. And when an album crosses over from being just a record to being an “experience,” that album is a success.