The Cinematic Orchestra - To Believe (2LP) - White/Clear Vinyl

The Cinematic Orchestra took their time with To Believe, arriving on Ninja Tune on 15 March 2019, and the patience shows. Twelve years after Ma Fleur, Jason Swinscoe and longtime collaborator Dom Smith return to that signature hush and bloom the group has honed since Every Day. Strings curl around close-mic’d drums, piano figures hang in the air, and the bass quietly does the emotional heavy lifting. It is music that lets silence do part of the speaking.

The title track sets the tone. Moses Sumney’s voice slips in like a question, tender but searching, and the arrangement keeps giving him room. You hear the care in the recording, the way each cymbal brush breathes. The song first surfaced years before the album as a hint of what might come, and on the record it lands like an overture. Then comes A Caged Bird Imitations of Life, a reunion with Roots Manuva that sparks memories of All Things to All Men from 2002. Here he is older, the production too, with strings that sigh and a groove that tugs rather than pushes. The cut anchors the record’s theme, less about certainties than the weight of carrying them.

TCO sequenced To Believe with a storyteller’s touch. Lessons and The Workers of Art are instrumentals that let the band roam. The drums have that familiar Luke Flowers glide, the kind of swing that feels both deliberate and casual, and the piano speaks in clipped phrases like a companion thinking out loud. Wait For Now Leave The World brings in Tawiah, whose voice is warm as lamplight. She rides a Rhodes-and-strings bed that could fill a room or keep you company at 2 a.m. Zero One This Fantasy pulls Grey Reverend into the circle, soft and spare, a late-night walk of a tune. Heidi Vogel closes with A Promise, a slow build that feels earned. There is no rush to the payoff and that is the point.

The record took shape across London and Los Angeles, and you can hear both cities in it, the grey and the glow. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s string arrangements give the music a gentle grandeur. Nothing is oversized. The orchestra lifts and drifts, then falls away to let a bassline or a single vocal phrase carry the thought. Production choices serve the song every time. That restraint is part of why The Cinematic Orchestra vinyl has such staying power on a turntable. The quiet passages are truly quiet. When the drums and low end arrive, they feel like a tide change instead of a trick.

Critical reception reflected the album’s calm confidence. Coverage from The Guardian, Pitchfork, and other long-watching outlets read like a welcome back, with debates about whether the band should chase the bigger moments of To Build a Home or lean into the drift. To Believe picks the latter and trusts the listener to come closer. On good speakers or a clean To Believe vinyl pressing, the small choices really glow, from the soft rasp on a snare head to the woody thump of the bass. This is a record that rewards attention.

If you collect The Cinematic Orchestra albums on vinyl, this one sits neatly next to Every Day and Ma Fleur, completing a quiet trilogy about memory and hope. It also pairs beautifully with the live companion, To Believe Live at the Royal Albert Hall, released the following year, which captures the arrangements blooming in a grand space. That show made clear how these songs breathe on stage, with strings rising in the hall and Roots Manuva’s cadence settling into the room.

For crate diggers, this is the sort of album you pull down for late nights or rainy mornings. If you are looking to buy The Cinematic Orchestra records online, To Believe should be near the top of the list. I have seen copies slide quickly even in a small Melbourne record store, and friends in the trade tell me it is a steady mover among vinyl records Australia wide. Partly because the music is beautiful, and partly because the cut lets that beauty through.

To Believe is not about spectacle. It is about tone, texture, and the search implied in its title. Put it on, let the room settle, and see what rises.