Live Review: Active Child, Oliver Tank

Sydney's Oliver Tank gets the evening off to an early start with a showcase of what he calls his slow motion music. Essentially this is a layering of atmospheric samples, beats and some basic guitar chords into loops that evolve extremely slowly, sounding a little like an ambient Massive Attack. Tank is something of a crooner who, unafraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, deals almost an hour of romantic love songs. As he moves from one intimate and tender declaration of love to the next, it seems that Tank takes more inspiration from James Blunt than James Blake. Footage of butterflies hopping from one flower to another is a great distraction but it takes a very dry red in the lobby to wash away the saccharine aftertaste.

Active Child emerges on stage in a glittering haze of orchestral sound to unleash the astonishing You Are All I See for eager fans. The acoustics of the wooden boxed enclosure that is Melbourne Recital Centre bring to life a finely crafted mix that carefully balances a four-piece band, string quartet and small, eight-person choir. The intricate arrangements seem to make the most of all the talent assembled onstage. Pat Grossi, the mastermind behind Active Child, is at the centre of everything with the sweet twinkling strum of his harp and effortlessly amazing choir-boy falsetto, which occasionally bottoms out into rich, deeper tones. The audience is mesmerised and it's likely that by now most are imagining that this will be what they hear on their ascent into heaven. Evening Ceremony and High Priestess catch Active Child in full flight as they continue to unfurl an utterly majestic sound that walks the line between seductive voluptuousness and monastic discipline. This is Active Child like we have never seen before and the tentative Grossi finally admits, in between songs, that although he is thrilled to present the music in this extended band format, he is also very nervous about messing it up.

About halfway through the set almost everyone leaves the stage and Grossi and his band proceed to play tunes from his new Rapor EP. Leaving the harp behind and admitting that his new material is a little more “Juno”, Grossi starts to treat us to lush, synthetic textures of sound from an old Roland Juno 60 that leaves us wondering what might have happened had he discovered the Jupiter 8. Calling In The Name Of Love and Feeling Is Gone come with an '80s, electro-pop bounce but Grossi's somewhat stoic countenance never lets things stray into bubble-gum Jimmy Somerville territory. The shimmering swirl of Silhouette concludes the night and brings punters to their feet as Grossi's yearning vocals seemingly disappear into the lush, swirling orchestration designed to sweep us away with sounds that have an otherworldly beauty.