Fallen Angel

When Pat Grossi has to cancel an interview because he's losing his voice, you can feel the drama. The 30-year-old Los Angeleno grew up a choirboy and still sounds like one; his highwire warble straddling near-castrato range across his one LP (2011's You Are All I See) and three EPs (2010's Sun Rooms and Curtis Lane, and his forthcoming new release Rapor) of sumptuous synth pop. Grossi's voice is his definitive instrument, his calling card and his meal ticket. Losing it seems like serious business. Until you hear how he lost it. “I spent the weekend at my best friend's bachelor [party] in Denver,” Grossi admits, croakily, and a little sheepishly. “So, naturally, we went and sang karaoke for three hours on Sunday. I'm still recovering. I did a little Hall & Oates, a little Neil Diamond, a little Guns N' Roses – I think that's the one that did it. I screamed my way through Welcome To The Jungle and, after I was done, I just couldn't talk.”

While already filed in the realm of amusing non-tour anecdote, Grossi's Axl-ing of his precious vocal cords has given him pause for thought. Active Child tours have, in truth, been closer to his karaoke bender than some Mariah-like procession of endless hotel rooms with humidifiers and hot honey-and-lemon. “To be honest, I've always just gone out on tour and had a blast, treated my voice like it'd always be there,” Grossi says. “But I'm getting older now, and that may have to change. Growing up singing in the choir was just this amazing vocal training for me, without even realising it; my voice is really, really strong. My voice can be powerful, but at the same time I think it sounds best when it's delicate and soft.”

It was the qualities of Grossi's voice that he had in mind when soliciting the pop star collaborateurs for his latest EP. Rapor features guest vocals from two pin-ups known to tweens worldwide: Mikky Ekko (on Subtle) and Ellie Goulding (on Silhouette); the voice of the former offering contrast, the latter sounding eerily similar. Goulding outed herself as an Active Child fan when she covered his jam Hanging On, including the version on her 2012 LP Halcyon. “When I was writing [songs for the EP], it was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to do something with her,” Grossi explains. “She just has such an incredible voice. I was really looking for someone who would complement my own voice. I have a strange voice, in many ways; its qualities are almost more feminine, and, with the falsetto, I'm much closer to feminine range. So it was amazing to sing with her; we sat at the piano and sang together for a solid couple of hours before we were ready to record.”

Both of the collaborations were recorded in-studio, Grossi wanting to avoid the filesharing collaboration-by-remote. “There's a certain amount of intimacy that occurs when you're in the same room, and you're actually singing together, singing back-and-forth, and throughout the chorus and into the outro,” he says. “It's something you can only get if you're in the one room together; you can't get that same sense of intimacy just swapping files over the internet.”

Though Grossi claims he wrote over 30 songs that could've been considered for Rapor, he wanted to stick to an EP to allow for more variety – “uptempo, ballad, instrumental” – and to get it out in 2013, rather than hanging around waiting to put out an LP next year. “And besides,” he reasons, “I think a lot of times, these days, an album can just be too much for people to sit with. It's a time in which you can really consider what counts as an official release, and how long you want it to be.”

Even if Rapor has the gleam of popstar sheen, it doesn't waver from the sound Grossi paraded over You Are All I See: with its soft synths and thrums of harp and his sky-straddling voice, it's straight beautiful, in the rarest of fashion. “A lot of people shy away from things that seem too beautiful; that're unabashedly sincere and heartfelt,” Grossi says. “I think, a lot of times, people seem to be uncomfortable making music that has those qualities. For me, it's what seems most instinctual. When I sit down to make music, I want to create this world that's lush and beautiful, and not be at all timid about it. If you're gonna go in that direction, you've gotta go all the way.”

Audiences respond in kind: “'Heavenly beautiful' is the most common catchphrase I get,” Grossi says. Which he's fine with, even if people focusing too much on the heavenly are barking up the wrong tree. “I'm from a secular background,” explains Grossi. “I wasn't raised religious at all. But I'm definitely drawn to the world of spirituality, to superstition, to beliefs. I studied religion when I was in university because I was curious about my own spirituality, [about] what it was that I actually believed myself... I'm very interested in religion, but I could never attach myself to some specific concrete rules of belief and worship.”

Yet, Grossi also knows that his 'heavenly' music 'sets himself up' for questions about his own faith, either interview or post-show. “It's amazing how much, at shows, people will come up and talk to me from a very religious perspective, and they'll just assume that I'm from that perspective,” he says. “Whether people are attached to my music for personal reasons or for their own spiritual reasons, it doesn't draw me either way. It's important for me, though, for them to know that I'm definitely not coming from a very specific religious perspective. The music has a lot of allegory to spiritual themes, and there's my choirboy voice, and I'm playing the harp, so I get it. But to be constantly called 'angelic' is pretty funny. Anyone who saw me at karaoke on Sunday can tell you that.”