Active Child–Chamber Maneuvers in the Light

Nov 6th, 2011 in Music

We’ve been following the growing painlessness of Active Child for a while now. And despite the foreshadowing of great earlier songs such as I’m In Your Church at Night and When Your Love is Safe, leader/singer/harpist Pat Rossi (part of the ever-growing falsetto coterie) appears to have fully matured with their recently released first proper album, “You Are All I See,” on Vagrant Records. The album is more varied sonically and lyrically, and all for the better.

Rossi (former choir boy turned indie artiste) recently said this about the album: “You Are All I See is an attempt to build a bridge between the listener and I, in that, I wrote these songs for you as much as I did for me. And right now when you are listening to my voice, by yourself, it really is just you and I.” Despite the grammar issues (yes, we are both Strunk and White), we laud Rossi’s move from the self-involved to the altruistic. Rossi went on to say: “The songs focus primarily on the joy and heartbreak of relationships, love lost and rediscovered, battles with monogamy, battles with identity. It came out much darker than I had intended, but sometimes you only have so much control. I think more than anything, I see this debut release as a bridge towards something bigger and truer.” We say: done.

Active Child employs grand orchestral-synth elements, harpo-chamber moments, and layered choral voices, all to great effect. But the new album also includes electronica samples and drums with R&B-ish melodic lines. It’s a heady and hearty mix.

Before you check out some scintillating videos below, check out the album’s first single, Playing House, below (this the “Chad Valley remix with that dang vocoder opening unfortunately). Motown or OMD, or the love-child thereof?? You make the call. Compare this version to the live version on KEXP below.

Active Child–Playing House (Chad Valley remix)

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/15-Playing-House-Chad-Valley-remix.mp3|titles=15 Playing House (Chad Valley remix)]

As for the videos, first check out Active Child performing Hanging On for The Line of Best Fit in Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves 2011. And then check the trio perform Playing House and Johnny Belinda on KEXP. And then below that check out the first song that drew us to the band, I’m in Your Church at Night, as done earlier this year on KEXP (and in a decidedly slower arrangement from the recorded version, which you can listen to below the video for comparison’s sake). Both are stunning, but we’ll take the live version for now.