Take some harps, washes of ethereal synth, falsetto vocals and out of it create some highly crafted pieces from the mellow pop idiom. This is what Active Child from Los Angeles does. It’s as if Bon Iver left his acoustic guitar in his log cabin and created a new wave electronic suite of chamber-like beauty that lays somewhere between the sonic architecture of Ultravox’s Vienna and OMD’s Joan Of Arc (Maid Of Orleans)
Active Child is one Pat Grossi and he has a body of songs that bubble through your brain and cleanse your life. Take the almost ethereal I’m In Your Church At Night (song below) which was inspired by a time when Pat and some friends crept into a ruined church in Perugia, Italy and found themselves surrounded by debris, dirt and sarcophagi. Then there’s When Your Love Is Safe which comes across like a mellow Passion Pit jam that slowly seeps around your brain caressing it with its slow electro handclap pulse. Our favourite is She Was A Vision, where Grossi forms his own ghostly choir and haunted lonely beauty out of a soft keyboard ambience. There’s a certain sprawling haziness to the work of Active Child that reminds us a little of Washed Out who we featured back in November here and it therefore comes as no surprise to find that both of these two acts are brought to you by Transparent. Connection made.
She Was A Vision will be released by Active Child in January as a single on pure white vinyl. You can pre-order it here.
amazing
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