Cameron Picton, also an occasional singer of the British rock eccentrics Black Midi, which disbanded indefinitely in 2024, had set two rules: no electric instruments and no musicians from his ex-band should be heard here. It is not known why he broke with both. But when in doubt, this is only logical, MY NEW BAND BELIEVE, the name of the project and Picton’s solo debut, is a panopticon of breaks and shifts, of ambiguities and excesses – a very worth listening to.
After Black Midi band leader Geordie Greep, who quickly made his solo debut, and drummer Morgan Simpson, who can be heard on Little Simz’ LOTUS, Picton is now also opening his post-Midi treasure chest. And there’s a lot of chaos there, the bassist sings his best purr in the ballad “Pearls” while the strings perform noise attacks. “In The Blink Of An Eye” pits vaudeville pop against a folk melody.
The main thing is that at least two things that, according to textbooks, hardly harmonize always happen at the same time. Here and there it goes a bit in the direction of Bert Jansch folk, at one point you can imagine yourself in a musical-like ode to the Sparks. The connections to the more innovative corner of the UK rock scene are intact, Georgia Ellery from Black Country, New Road co-wrote “Love Story”, Alex McKenzie from Caroline plays the bass clarinet solo on “One Night”, multi-instrumentalist Kiran Leonard arranged string quartets for the record, and beyond that the line-up remains confusing. And the music is ambitious all over the place.
