“Love Story” – the first single from My New Band Believe’s self-title debut album – is a clear signifier of the split between Cameron Picton and fellow black midi alum Geordie Greep. Following black midi’s sudden disbandment in 2023, Greep would follow Hellfire with The New Sound the following year, and while it certainly differentiated itself with its move towards Zappa-esque Latin-infused jazz-rock, spiritually it felt as though it came from roughly the same place and moved along the same trajactory. Picton went another way: take a listen to any of his mixtapes released under the name Camera Picture and you’ll find music that is near indistinguishable from his previous project, leaning into softer, more typically beautiful ambient tones, gentler melodic passages, and lyrics that tend to favor sincerity over satirical wit (though this isn’t to say Picton had lost his sense of humor).
Some of the ideas from Camera Picture now find their way into Picton’s new low stakes “band” (he seems to ironically view it as somewhat halfway between a band and a solo project) My New Band Believe. Whereas Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, and the more zany breed of rock experimentalists were common touchpoints with especially black midi’s later work, My New Band Believe feels more in line with Fairport Convention or Van Dyke Parks in this moment in time: deceptive in its depth and almost breezy in its execution.
“Love Story” begins as a classical piano waltz before opening up into a gorgeously shambling melody, instrumentally layered to the point where the song perpetually dangles over the precipice of overload without ever fully spilling over. Most striking is perhaps the bass clarinet from Alex McKenzie, but a one-man brass section from Freddy Wordsworth, a full string orchestra, field recordings from shame bassist Josh Finerty, and playful additions from Picton – such as a bamboo saxophone and toy instruments – are tightly packed in such a way as to make “Love Story” feel simultaneously massive and deeply intimate, with the melody itself invoking the same mid-formation beauty of something like Big Star’s “Daisy Glaze.” Picton’s lyrics begin endearingly mundane and unflashy, recalling cooking a meal with a loved one amid simple declarations of love, unencumbered by overly metaphorical poetics. This is a song that values love as comfort and clarity. Picton does cheekily interpolate Jockstrap’s “Sexy 2,” but manages to not disturb the earnest tone.
By the final verse, the song takes a more anxious turn: “I pull you close in the night / But you’re not there / To make the knots that you tie / Now you’re a river in me / You’re in my bones / I wanna swim to the sea / Under the phosphorus light / I cannot find you.” The tempo adjusts accordingly, fueling the air of confusion and fear, but it dissipates, landing once more and finally on “You are the love of my life.” It’s perfectly emblematic of the grounding potential of healthy love, and “Love Story” is simply one of the sweetest, most beautiful songs of the year thus far.
Listen to non-album “dance” single “Numerology”:
Travis Shosa (they/them) is the EIC of Dodo Eraser. Their creative writing is featured or forthcoming in Stanchion, Maudlin House, Burial Magazine, The Bulb Region, BULL, Some Words, BULLSHIT LIT, and others. Their journalism is featured in Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, The Line of Best Fit, PAPER, and others.
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