Active Child Is All You'll See

Pat Grossi - Active Child to you - surely is Justin Vernon's brother, right? At least spiritually. The warped R'n'B soul that permeates Active Child's debut LP You Are All I See is a synthetic, samples heavy sister to any of Vernon's works under his Bon Iver moniker, or even his Gayngs supergroup. The vocal delivery is mirrored; that haunting, quasi operatic falsetto that flows over the strings of your heart is omnipresent throughout, with it be on the choral beauty of the opening title track, the RnB meets chillwave majesty of 'Hanging On' and 'Playing House' (that also features compatriot How To Dress Well). Like another chillwave exponent, Washed Out's Ernest Greene, Grossi has an incredible, INCREDIBLE voice, and refuses to hide behind cold production - the arrangements are splendid, but the voice is front and centre, and all the better for it. I Wasn't sure whether I would get into this all the way through to the closer, but (also like Washed Out's debut from earlier in the year, Within And Without) You Are All I See doesn't just hold the interest, but is imminently playable. A more sonorous, lush and beautiful album you aren't likely to find this year.

You Are All I See is out through Vagrant Records - grab it here.

Active Child - Hanging On
Active Child - See Thru Eyes

Finding Musical Nuggets In This Denver Goldrush

This is an incredibly exciting notion - a festival run by three ace of base blogs! Pity its in Denver...too far away! The rad dudes from Tome To The Weather Machine, Magic Teepee and Speaker Snacks have united to present the first annual GOLDRUSH Music Festival, in two weeks' time, September 16th and 17th at the Hi-Dive Rock Club and Sputnik in Denver, Colorado. This two-day event will cover a wide, varied selection of musical styles from across North America, featuring rock, electronic, pop, and ambient from over 30 nationally renowned artists, headlined by Tennis, CVLTS and How To Dress Well. The Tome's Crawf and Ryan H., Magic Teepee's Ryan P., and Speaker Snacks' Jake Martin are all longtime friends and avid supporters of all things music. Each site has had a careful hand in picking out the artists performing this year, making the artist invitations/acceptances and pending performances extremely personal and sacred. These musicians have been obsessively listened to, worshipped, and then subsequently written about—and for good reason. Its a veritable who's who od SM-endorsed artists like Vitamins, Junior Low, Tjutjana, School Knights, Candy Claws, Seven Feathers Rainwater, Slow Magic, StaG, the Kevin Costner Suicide Pact, Steffaloo and Teen Daze, plus a shedload more, GOLDRUSH promises to be something special.

The guys put together this compilation to showcase the event, and its pretty spectacular. You can get tix for the event here! Its uber cheap and will be an amazing weekend, so get on board!!

Active Child Hangs On To Dress Well

It's weird to think that this is the first post where Im mentioning How To Dress Well, but there you go... Active Child's debut album, You Are All I See, is coming out August 23, with second single 'Hangin On' going up last week as a free download on Adult Swim's Singles Program. The album's first single, 'Playing House', also went live on iTunes, and this bad boy features - you guessed it - How To Dress Well. Both songs are pretty damned lovely, but seeing as his EP from last month Just Once is one of the best things Ive heard for some time and have yet to plug it, this will do for the time being. But that's not to take away from Active Child either at all - Im expecting You Are All I See to do some amazing things next month. Two awesome dudes, doing the doo.

Active Child - Hanging On
Active Child - Playing House (ft How To Dress Well)