The Cinematic Orchestra - To Believe (Remixes) (EP)

The Cinematic Orchestra’s 2019 return with To Believe felt like a long exhale after years of quiet, a record steeped in space and patience that made every cymbal brush and string swell feel essential. To Believe (Remixes), released in 2021 on Ninja Tune, doesn’t try to outmuscle that mood. It refracts it. What you get is a curated map of how different producers and composers hear this band: not as downtempo nostalgia, but as living, flexible material that can bend toward club sound-systems, ambient drift, and late-night headphone reveries without losing the group’s pulse.

The anchor here is Floating Points’ take on A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life, which had already built a life of its own on 12-inch and in DJ sets. Sam Shepherd stretches Roots Manuva’s verses across a bed of glowing synths and nimble percussion, then patiently teases the release. It’s the sort of remix that keeps the bones of the original intact while changing the weather around it. On a good system, the low end rolls like a tide. On The Cinematic Orchestra vinyl edition of this set, it’s the cut that makes you sit up and realign your speakers.

Much of the album plays with that balance between reverence and risk. The title track To Believe, with Moses Sumney’s voice still impossibly weightless, is recast in ways that pull the song toward a shadowy dancefloor, then back into the stillness it came from. Hearing Sumney float over a lean 4/4 pulse puts his phrasing in a new light, yet the emotional center stays put. Wait For Now/Leave The World, built around Tawiah’s intimate delivery, becomes something like a slow-motion aurora in its reworked form, trading the original’s hushed soul for a widescreen hush. Zero One/This Fantasy, always a sleeper highlight, gets a rhythmic shake that brings out the tune’s inner restlessness without crowding its piano figures.

If you came to the original album for the orchestral detail and careful dynamics, the remixes are a reminder of how elastic those arrangements actually are. Strings turn into shimmering pads. Double bass becomes sub-bass pressure. Drums loosen, swing harder, or disappear. Yet the DNA is obvious: Jason Swinscoe’s ear for negative space, Luke Flowers’ rhythmic intuition, and that unmistakable Cinematic Orchestra sense of drama, even when the tempo nudges up. It’s easy to imagine the band nodding along in the studio, appreciating how the core melodies hold, even as the frame shifts.

What’s striking is how coherent the whole thing feels. Remix albums can read like grab bags. Here, the sequencing plays like an evening. Early on, the grooves are warm and inquisitive. The middle section drifts into ambient reverie, letting pianos and texture carry the weight. The final stretch pulls you back toward pulse and resolution. It rewards a start-to-finish play, which is exactly how To Believe (Remixes) vinyl comes alive. Side-flips act like scene changes, and those quiet runouts between tracks give your ears room to reset.

There are little fan-pleasing touches throughout. Roots Manuva’s cadence cutting through a thicket of synths still hits like a memory you can’t place. The Workers of Art, always a study in restraint, is treated with care, its themes stretched rather than smashed. Lessons gets a playful nudge that foregrounds its rhythmic puzzle-box. None of it feels like a novelty pass; it sounds like artists who grew up with this band taking their shot, mindful of the lineage.

If you’re building out a shelf of The Cinematic Orchestra albums on vinyl, this one earns its slot because it tells a parallel story to the 2019 record. It shows how these compositions stand up when they leave the nest. For collectors hunting To Believe (Remixes) vinyl, the pressing is the way to hear how the low-end architecture and small spatial decisions interact. If you buy The Cinematic Orchestra records online, you’ll see this pop up alongside the original To Believe and the earlier classics, right where it belongs. And if you stumble on it in a Melbourne record store while flipping through new arrivals, it’s an easy “take home now” pick—one of those vinyl records Australia shops file in the electronic or downtempo bin that actually plays like a graceful conversation between worlds.

Longtime listeners will nod at the choices; newer fans might even start here and work backward. Either way, it’s a generous listen. Not a rehash, not a flex, just a thoughtful, well-sequenced set that reminds you why this music travels so well.