Big Black Delta (Jonathan Bates) has announced the release of his newest LP, 4, out July 10th. With this announcement, Bates also shared the latest video-single off of the LP, “Lord Only Knows.” Both the announcement and video were premiered with BrooklynVegan. “Lord Only Knows” further expresses Bates’ enigmatic production. Through lush hooks, heavyweight guitars, spacious vocals, triumphant piano chords, BBD blends unlikely sounds into a captivating avant-pop track. “Lord Only Knows” further escalates the excitement ahead of the album.
On the track Bates describes, “The first song written for ‘4’ was quite fitting given that lofty goal. Getting things off to a glorious start with heavyweight guitars and lush hooks, “Lord Only Knows” is a mission statement set to major-keyed avant-pop music. According to Bates, “it starts like Whitesnake and ends like Liberace,” reflecting a renewed interest in heavy-metal (see also: some breakthrough sessions with Dhani Harrison.)”
Director of the video, Adam Osgood says, “This is the third music video I’ve created for Big Black Delta over a period of 6 years, so working on “Lord Only Knows” was an opportunity for me to revisit characters and themes from “Huggin & Kissin” and “Bitten by the Apple.” What I love about the track for “Lord” is that it starts with a scream, and the first time I heard it, I immediately knew the story had to have a dramatic change in those first couple seconds.
Because I wanted to return to the father/daughter relationship that was explored in the earlier music videos, I had to come up with a way to link back up to the previous stories about being lost in space. The last time we saw the father character, he was a god-like being hurtling towards earth as an asteroid. I thought it would be an interesting twist if it turned out that he was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
I’m (unfortunately) preoccupied with apocalyptic thoughts during most of my waking hours, and wanted to parallel that Mesozoic destruction with my real-life worries about nuclear warfare. Including the Liberace character was an idea from Jon that I thought was brilliant, and incorporating something zany into this tale was a great way to counter the darkness. Jon Bates is masterfully talented and I’m incredibly grateful to have collaborated with Big Black Delta for a third time.
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