Australian, Sydney-based free jazz collective quartet Believe – alto sax player Peter Farrar, pianist Novak Manojlovic, double bass player Clayton Thomas, and drummer Laurence Pike (who like Farrar began his career with pianist Mike Nock) – recorded its second album, Nature’s God, at the same location and time as its debut album, Spirits Of The Dead Are Watching (Relative Pitch, 2025), at Golden Retriever Studios in Sydney in July 2023.

Nature’s God is «a meditation on the beauty of human existence and the power of the planet we love». It moves between rare, restrained, and sparse intimacy, which immediately invites comparisons to the hypnotic textures of another creative Australian band, The Necks, and to ecstatic, volatile Aylerian blowouts. But in Believe’s music there is always a tension-filled, raw, urgent, and dangerous anything-is-possible element, and the opening title piece faithfully captures it.

The following pieces use this improvisational strategy in different, unpredictable ways, adding patient, delicate timbral explorations and connecting its potent, powerhouse free jazz aesthetics to European minimalist schools of free improvisation and to contemporary music. These pieces allow Believe to be fully possessed by the liberating art of the moment, boldly, unabashedly, and passionately, simply playing for the universe, not the algorithm. But Believe is fully aware that «Earth Does Not Need Us» (as the fourth piece is titled), and celebrates this rare awareness in a tribal, timeless ritual. Nature’s God ends with the enigmatic, minimalist, and most beautiful «Owls».

Eyal Hareuveni

Peter Farrar (alto saxophone, percussion), Novak Manojlovic (piano, percussion), Clayton Thomas (double bass, percussion), Laurence Pike (drums, percussion)