Cameron Picton gets the ball rolling on a new music project with lead single Lecture 25. What it leads to, where it may take the former Black Midi member, is of no importance. My New Band Believe wishes to work in the here and now, the immediacy of Lecture 25 lending itself to a relaxed break from the real world. What it means for the Windmill Scene, the London plenty who are creating with an integrity for instrumental creativity, can be heard on Lecture 25. It is the status and occasion which just happens to back some extremely talented musicians, from the Black Midi demise to The New Sound from Geordie Greep. Black Country, New Road, too, has found success. Picton is part of this increase in quality sound, and Lecture 25, the debut single of My New Band Believe, is a welcome beginning.
Intensity, volatility and adaptations of the life surrounding Picton are heard immediately. Those suggestions of dreams, of death, being the end result if the hopes of people in the same room as him were acted on. Lecture 25 is a combination of the what-ifs and the lack of resolve some show. Vivid imagery is crucial and becomes the unifying piece of the Windmill Scene. These may be very different in scope, but the lack of grounded occasion, the desire to push on through, boom further and dare to dream, even if those made-up moves toward the future are of disgusting quality, is the point. We do not think up positive thoughts every day. Sometimes the thrill comes from distaste, and that is what Lecture 25 finds so well. Alone with their thoughts across the globe, Picton travels the world and suggests the highlights, the lived-in experiences, are nothing compared to the floaty fiction which whirls away in the mind.
There is an innocence and tragedy to that thought process. Dreams are an escape for many who cannot afford to free themselves of the real world and its trivial problems. Lecture 25 is a shot of hope for those tethered to the chilling world around them. My New Band Believe has an instrumental scope fitting the scene, a welcome familiarity but a unique twist with Picton on lead vocals and featuring a staggeringly well-sounded off mixture of percussion and piano. It all compiles well as he charts a course through extreme dreams. A friendly yet unhinged expression is what Picton paints with his lyrics, and adding those explosive instrumental details are the underscore those out-there moments of inspired writing need. Picton’s skill is in his portrayal of the world as a constant pain but a dreamlike moment, never to be captured again.
He feeds texts from the past, encounters with the blind and trips around the globe into a frenetic and powerful first track for My New Band Believe. Like his former bandmates, Picton focuses on the wildness of the real world, the fictionalised accounts we have of spaces, places, and people, blur our reality. Lecture 25 is a charming song, not least because its lyrical interplay and series of vivid imagery is a barrage of ideas. Great work. Flashes of lyrical compliment to the great writers and poets, the adaptations of their writing to the modern day give Picton that ever-needed link to the past. It affects and informs the future, with Lecture 25 a speed-run through the lessons of life and their futility in adaptation.
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