Cameron McLain returns with a bright, unique indie-electronica anthem "All The Light"

Cameron McLain leans on a decade of experience as an artist for new project

A decade is a long time in music — long enough for the landscape to shift entirely, for former peers to build careers and move on, for the version of yourself that last made something to feel like a different person. Cameron McLain’s return to releasing music after more than ten years carries that weight quietly, and “All The Light” sounds like a track from an artist enjoying a new creative freedom..

The biographical context here is vast and varied, McLain’s early musical life began in a school project alongside Andrew Davie, who went on to co-found Bear’s Den; he later released work under the name Mandala, co-founded the electronic project Vector Xing, earned placements on Netflix, Nat Geo and Discovery, and then stepped away. “All The Light” is what the other side of that gap sounds like, an artist returning with no agenda other than to make unique, flowing electronica with a soul and a sound that’s truly the artists own.

The track was crafted between London and California, and you can feel both in it. The references — Maribou State, BAYNK, Barry Can’t Swim, Bonobo — point toward a specific and currently well-populated corner of the electronic landscape: organic instrumentation folded into euphoric production, music that lives at the intersection of the intimate and the collective. McLain describes the song as being about “the invisible things that connect us — love, energy, memory, the feeling of being completely present with other people,”

That it preludes a forthcoming larger project gives it additional interest. “All The Light” functions well as a scene-setter — a track that signals a sensibility and a direction without front-loading everything it has to say. The decade away has apparently clarified something rather than clouded it.