Time to locate the hairs on the back of your neck – they will soon be standing to attention. The Cinematic Orchestra are back with the first single from their hugely anticipated forthcoming studio album and it’s everything you could hope for: an epic, heart-achingly sad, but beautiful and uplifting piece of music based on the simple idea that “the prerequisite of everything in life is belief”.

Original Cinematic Orchestra main man Jason Swinscoe has now been joined on production duties by longtime friend and collaborator Dom Smith, and the result of this partnership is some of the most poised, ravishing music of this band’s stellar career.

On “To Believe”, Swinscoe and Smith collaborated with the much talked about LA based vocalist Moses Sumney, named one-to-watch by Pitchfork and the Fader, as well as artists including Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Solange and James Blake, and listening to his work with TCO, you can understand why. Building from simple acoustic guitar and voice to trademark TCO piano work and, eventually, full – and completely scintillating – strings, all held together by Sumney’s ghostly yet magnificent voice.

It’s a piece that reaches back to the very roots of what The Cinematic Orchestra has always been while looking forward, drawing on new influences and production techniques to stay utterly contemporary. Moses Sumney will also join the band on their London dates to perform “To Believe”. Listen below.