Big Black Delta

Big Black Delta serves as the electronic outlet for Jonathan Bates, who fronts the Los Angeles indie rock outfit Mellowdrone. Under this alias his sound draws equally from hook-driven 1980s new wave and the synthesizer-heavy scores of cinema. The first release under the name, BBDLP1, surfaced in 2011 and later reappeared in revised form as the self-titled Big Black Delta in 2013. The independently issued Trágame Tierra arrived in 2016, succeeded the next year by the instrumental collection WHORU812. After early cuts “Huggin & Kissin” and “Capsize” resurfaced in the late 2010s via the series The Sinner, Bates issued his fourth album, 4, in 2020.

The endeavor originated in 2010 when Mellowdrone entered an extended hiatus following ten years of recording and live work, prompting Bates to reconsider the band format altogether. Alongside a brief touring stint with M83, he took jobs as a delivery driver and sound technician until former Nine Inch Nails member Alessandro Cortini demonstrated the advantages of laptop-based composition. Bates immersed himself in the process, and during a concentrated burst of creation Big Black Delta emerged. Merging guitars with distorted electronics to produce a dense Wall of Sound, the project—named after a type of fabricated UFO—offered the free EP BBDEP1 in 2010. He also joined War Widow for a version of Cheap Trick’s “He’s a Whore.” The full-length BBDLP1 then appeared on Coming Home Records in 2011. That same year Big Black Delta reworked M83’s hit single “Midnight City,” and the two acts together supplied a remix of “Fall” from Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy soundtrack. The singles If***ingloveyou and Betamax followed in 2012 on Bates’ own Master of Bates imprint, which put out a reconfigured edition of the debut album in spring 2013. BBD stayed active with fresh material while also handling remixes for Puscifer, Jaga Jazzist, and Phases.

In 2015 Big Black Delta unveiled the new singles “It’s OK” and “RCVR,” the latter featuring 1980s teen-pop artist Debbie Gibson; both songs appeared on the 2016 album Trágame Tierra, which included the Kimbra collaboration “Bitten by the Apple.” The following year, alongside the atmospheric instrumental set WHORU812, the project regained attention when “Huggin & Kissin” and “Capsize” featured prominently in season one of The Sinner. After a period of inactivity, Bates returned in 2020 with the fourth LP, 4, folding heavy-metal riffs into his customary synth palette. Fittingly, he also contributed a pair of period-appropriate synth-and-guitar pieces to the soundtrack of Bill & Ted Face the Music.