My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe

My New Band Believe is the new vehicle for former black midi bassist and half-frontman Cameron Picton; their self-titled debut is his first album since leaving the band. With a rule of no (well, very few) electric instruments or treatments used on the record, Picton restricts himself from reaching for the usual shortcuts to evocation.

Maximalist yet not bloated due to an iron commitment to dynamism, the record has such body, so full even in its quietest moments. Picton never rests; nothing is allowed to linger. Shivering, whispering tension and staccato anxieties are punctured by moments of ecstatic beauty and lush, cosmic grandeur, quickly abandoned as he journeys onwards, confident that he’s taking us somewhere. Through hallucinatory strains of the big music, choirs layered on strings layered on strings layered on horns allow us to glimpse through the music and see something vital, at once both beyond and within it.

Picton has led out of this gathered ensemble a record that lives and breathes, and can be lived and breathed in. This constellation of song worlds is much more than just a vessel for Picton to empty himself into, endlessly shifting and swerving and leaping and diving, filled with bright melodies and organic, living sound.

Listen to: Love Story, Heart of Darkness, Actress