Two-thousand and ten has been the year of dream-pop-shit-gaze or whatever you want to call it. New acts seem to be dropping like jaws at a Beach House concert: Memoryhouse, Twin Sister, Wild Nothing, and now Active Child.
The band, as their name suggests, is the black-sheep of the family. Pat Grossi, the man behind the sounds, layers choral vocals, new-wave synths, and harp in cyclical pulsing rhythms. At one moment you're convinced this is just another Bon Iver side project, at the next some b-side from LCD Soundsystem. Its a strange mix, and when it works it
really works.
Take for example the first track off Active Child's new EP,
Curtis Lane:
Active Child :: I'm In Your Church At Night
If you can move beyond the fact that this song (and its creepy-as-hell title) belong on a David Lynch soundtrack, there is a lot to love here. We open with a choir-boy wall of sound that carries throughout (à la Panda Bear, Julliana Barwick) and adds a haunting backdrop for the otherwise eighties-pop aesthetic. In an
interview with Pitchfork Grossi discusses this element of his music:
...The choral aspect came from when I was young. I sang in the Philadelphia Boys Choir for five or six years while I lived in New Jersey, where I grew up until I was 13. That was the first real musical expression I had, [so] I think it had a big influence on the way my mind works as far as creating melodies.
The influence carries throughout the EP, but is most present on stand-out "Wilderness":
Active Child :: Wilderness
Check out more tunes on Grossi's myspace and pre-order the EP below.
Myspace
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