Active Child

Musician Pat Grossi channels his ethereal falsetto and harp skills through the project Active Child, fusing glacial atmospheres and soulful textures with electronic and choral influences alongside '80s new wave and dance traditions. Grossi first earned critical notice via the 2011 full-length You Are All I See, then expanded his reach by touring with James Blake and M83. Continued recognition followed through repeated festival slots and further stylistically adventurous releases, among them the neo-soul-infused sophomore album Mercy issued in 2015.

Grossi entered the world in New Jersey in 1983 and grew up in an artistic household headed by a music-executive father and an abstract-painter mother. His earliest musical interests took shape under his father’s affinity for '80s alternative bands such as New Order and Tears for Fears, coupled with his own attraction to '90s hip-hop. At roughly nine years old he joined the Philadelphia Boys Choir, receiving formative vocal instruction during tours that reached Europe, Australia, and South Africa. College years spent in Colorado broadened his palette further; there he studied harp and absorbed an increasingly wide-ranging array of sounds before beginning to compose original material that wove these threads together. Under the name Active Child he surfaced in 2010 with the EP Curtis Lane on Merok Records. Its atmospheric textures drew the ear of School of Seven Bells, who shared stages with him and exchanged remixes on a split 7".

The debut full-length You Are All I See arrived in summer 2011 via Vagrant Records. An introspective exploration of relationships and identity, the album reached the Top 40 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart. Grossi resurfaced in 2013 with the Rapor EP, which included contributions from Mikky Ekko and Ellie Goulding. His second long-player Mercy appeared in summer 2015, pushing his sound toward emotive, neo-soul territory. After several years spent touring plus contributing guest spots and remixes, he reentered the studio for a third album. Co-produced by Andrew Sarlo, whose prior credits include Bon Iver and Big Thief, In Another Life emerged in mid-2020 and contained the track “Weightless.”