Child Actor

Child Actor, the New England-based duo made up of singer Sedgie Ogilvy and producer/instrumentalist Max Heath, who released their compelling debut full-length Victory in mid-October, unleash surprise single "Sugarcube", a dazzling, aptly sugary cover of the Yo La Tengo classic, inspired by the indeed pleasant news that the Hoboken veterans' 13th studio album Fade, which is due January 14. Celebrate together with Child Actor by taking a listen below. - No Fear Of Pop

Child Actor, the New England-based duo made up of singer Sedgie Ogilvy and producer/instrumentalist Max Heath, who released their compelling debut full-length Victory in mid-October, unleash surprise single "Sugarcube", a dazzling, aptly sugary cover of the Yo La Tengo classic, inspired by the indeed pleasant news that the Hoboken veterans' 13th studio album Fade, which is due January 14. Celebrate together with Child Actor by taking a listen below. - No Fear Of Pop

Child Actor are two cousins hailing from New Haven, CT and Boston, MA. Sedgie Ogilvy sings while Max Heath lays down the beats. Their sound is indie electro with an R&B twist. Lyrically mysterious, with reverb and auto-tune tugging the vocals back and forth between the beats on the hip hop landscape, their EP Window has a beautiful surface tension which speaks of a darker underbelly if you only stop passively listening. But why would you? In my opinion it’s the perfect thing to throw on while you’re doing just about anything. Child Actor has put together some great pop songs for a modern age. Check out a track from their full length album Victory below. - The Deli CMJ

Child Actor are two cousins hailing from New Haven, CT and Boston, MA. Sedgie Ogilvy sings while Max Heath lays down the beats. Their sound is indie electro with an R&B twist. Lyrically mysterious, with reverb and auto-tune tugging the vocals back and forth between the beats on the hip hop landscape, their EP Window has a beautiful surface tension which speaks of a darker underbelly if you only stop passively listening. But why would you? In my opinion it’s the perfect thing to throw on while you’re doing just about anything. Child Actor has put together some great pop songs for a modern age. Check out a track from their full length album Victory below. - The Deli CMJ

Child Actor released another music video from their new album Victory [Fake Four] directed by band member and beat-maker, Max Heath, for their song “Reasons”. The video features a medley of a ballet/ stage performance that involves hand shadow art, dancing and mocked instrument playing, a full show really.

The “Reasons” video isn’t entirely as visually experimental as Child Actor’s video for “If You Love Me” but perhaps this is due to the differences in sound between the two tracks, whereas “Reasons” does cater better to a more organic, less hip hop laden and extravagant emotional palette. Max Heath manages to keep the video contained to a specific color scheme, however; which is a nice unifying aspect to the performance. The video is strongest at its climaxes with Heath’s playfulness in video speed, slowing down the dancers head banging and synchronized jumping that gains momentum from the track’s beats opening up to that echoed full kit sound. Beyond that, the introductory shot pulling back from water pouring over a screen in front of the dancer is pretty slick. Seems like this guy has a knack for directing.

Child Actor’s record, Victory is currently available from Fake Four Records. - Impose

Pulsing electronic beats layered over wistful pop songs, Child Actor is very much a collaboration for the 2010s. Composed of cousins Max Heath and Sedgie Ogilvy, the band writes its songs long distance—Sedgie will sit at her piano, sing, record, and send her songs to Max, who will then inject them with danceable beats. They live in different cities, work in different spaces and at different times, and yet somehow are able to create a cohesive record. Their songs, such as "If You Loved Me," which you can stream bellow, are both soothing and utterly danceable —pop at its most cathartic. "Max does tap right into the emotion that I put into the song," Sedgie tells us over the phone. "It's kind of cool, because we've both had really different experiences in our lives but we can relate on all these songs and actually feel like the same kind of weird emotions," she continues.

Child Actor's debut album, Victory, comes out in two weeks, and the cousins have yet to perform their songs live—but they'd like to, and we'd like to hear it. Here, we speak with Sedgie and Max about their musical families, their early days as child roadies, and, of course, their favorite child actors. - Interview Magazine

What do we know about Child Actor? The 2012 standouts have released two EP’s, Partner in February, Window in July. Both of their EP’s dreams large and enter into a world of upbeat shoegaze that M83 should be familiar with. Washed Out would be happy.

Hailing from Massachusetts and Connecticut, Sedgie Ogilvy and Max Heath recently released their first full-length, Victory, a spiraling blend of synths, samples, and sexy discoball dance dreams that Dali might depict. Alliteration aside folks, you could probably loop their albums over the movie Drive and not notice a change in the film. Recently, Blue Sky Black Death did a “glacial re-edit” of their track, “This Is It.”

Head over to their Bandcamp page, pay what you like, and download away. I see Child Actor doing much larger things in the new future. Maybe even a crossover or two with Main Attrakionz or Deniro Ferrar? Fingers crossed. - Mishka NYC

These days my music library reads like a pedophile's Google search history: "Teengirl Fantasy," "TEEN," and now "Child Actor."

Emerging from the electric jungle of indie R&B, of the same tribe as Policia and Purity Ring, Child Actor is made of New England cousins Max Heath and Sedgie Ogilvy. They're lucky they don't come from the South, or else I'd take advantage of the obvious jokes to be made here. Their upcoming LP is the pair's first together, coming after two EPs released earlier this year. You may know producer Max from his work with Ceschi in Anonymous Inc. Max handles production, the lovely Sedgie delivers vocals that sound like tears of joy in a time of sadness.

If Child Actor were a drug they would be a strong pull of Indica enhanced by the remnants of a benzo dissolved on your tongue earlier. Sexually, their music feels like fucking seated in bed, legs wrapped around one another, gazing into your lover's eyes as you rock together...both the position and drug combo are favorites of mine, so you can tell I really dig these guys. - VICE

It's probably for the best that we have Sedgie Ogilvy and Max Heath tell us exactly what components and ideas make up their debut 'Victory' LP. One listen to this inaugural release and chances are you'll be found lying face-down in a corner of a dark room, flummoxed by a sound that defies genre convention and merely requires the adoring listener to play along and stop thinking about the ifs, buts and gritty details. A love of R&B rests at the core of this album; a romantic centre all soft and beaming. If there are any peers, the sample-heavy instant-pop of Phantogram could be a calling point; or the frenetic immediacy of Purity Ring's recent full-length. But this Connecticut duo continue to defy as the album develops, so in order to prevent any confusion, the band gave DIY a track-by-track guide to their all-encompassing beast of a debut. - DIY

For the past few years, Boston-based vocalist Sedgie Ogilvy has been sending home-recorded song demos over to her cousin, beatmaker Max Heath, in Connecticut. A member of New Haven hip-hop collective Anonymous Inc. and an experimental composer in his own right, Heath grafts her wispy R&B melodies over a baroque patchwork of snaking drums, sampled synths and screaming guitars. “If You Loved Me,” is the accidental-rich, rhythmically suspenseful first single from Child Actor’s upcoming Victory LP, which drops October 16th via Fake Four.

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2012/09/11/child-actor-if-you-loved-me-mp3/#ixzz2Hj0eKwCT
- The Fader

Child Actor - "If You Loved Me"
It's officially fall and before I officially fall victim to Seasonal Affective Disorder, I'm taking a break from all of the angst-y beats I've been burdening myself with. My new go-to is a refreshing blend of experimental composition with both male and female vocals—and I can't recall a cool enough duet since the Postal Service. Sedgie Ogilvy teamed up with her cousin Max from Anonymous Inc. to create a sound that might even necessitate a new genre, but I haven't gotten that far yet. This synth-heavy song isn't even that much more upbeat than say, Grimes, but it's at the very least soothing enough to help me beat SAD. - NYLON

Child Actor combines Connecticut producer Max Heath with Bostonian home-recorded vocalist Sedgie Ogilvy to produce what they call "R&B for the digital age." That description accurately describes their debut LP Victory, released on New Haven, Connecticut label Fake Four Inc., partner label to Circle into Square, exactly a month ago (October 16). The description holds particularly true in terms of mood, with the album tugging at the sultry, vulnerable feelings that R&B tends to evoke. But this isn't "modern R&B for hipsters" in the sense that The Weeknd is "modern R&B for hipsters"; it draws its influences in a more subtle way and is better classified as dream pop.

Fans of ethereal shoegaze will probably like Victory - while it lacks the wailing wall of sound or occasional heavy, droning feel of some music from that genre, replacing it with more airy, tender instrumentals, the echoing vocals actually remind me a little bit of Slowdive when Rachel Goswell's at the mic (think "Sing") and there are definitely moments when the layered production feels undeniably shoegaze-y. Not to mention that Max Heath's backing vocals aren't totally dissimilar to Neil Halstead or Kevin Shields.

That's not to say that Child Actor is a modern Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine ripoff - they definitely aren't - but it's rare to find a band that captures that kind of emotion in recent times - they exist, but they're rare - let alone one that does it while still feeling original and current, rather than like they're clinging desperately to early 90s nostalgia as a cover band in disguise.

Victory isn't the sort of album that's strictly divided between singles and B-sides -- every track seems to carry its weight pretty evenly, which means that it's more difficult to select track highlights definitively, but it's also much more fun to listen to the LP as a unified whole and hone in on moments rather than songs. I love the pacing and mood in "If You Loved Me", the clamoring percussion in "Forgiven", the particular way the backing vocals cry "I can see it in your eyes" in "New Life" (after a few listens, it still gets me every time), the more energetic, almost beat-driven sound of "Wait", and the emotive synths in "Almost Never" and how well they play alongside with Ogilvy's vocals.

Victory is something you'll want to listen to several times, figuring out which moments resonate most deeply with you. With more emotional staying power than a lot of music caught up in today's rapid release cycle, I think this one is a keeper. - Earmilk

Child Actor are a duo whose debut album Victory features a dozen electronic falling-in-and-out-of-love songs. However, any illusions or fantasies that they are a dubstep Dollar are dashed by the realisation that they are cousins. That's a shame, because it means we can't read their songs for covert references to each other, for signs of satisfaction or spite.

Of course, that pleasure – of knowing who the song is about – increases exponentially as the fame of the artist increases. That's partly why Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was so thrilling – was Go Your Own Way really a kiss-off from Lindsey to Stevie? The Human League's Dare album had a similar subtextual romantic layer as it emerged that Phil Oakey was involved with Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley. Although Sedgie Ogilvy and Max Heath can never provide that level of intrigue, and may remain a bloggers' delight, Victory is still a Rumours/Dare of an album in that it is very melodic and the songs deal with affairs of the heart. But it's also rooted, in terms of rhythm and production, in what is coming to be regarded as the second golden age of R&B, that late-90s/early-00s era when Timbaland, Dallas Austin and Rodney Jerkins made it cool to be jerky and singers such as Aaliyah and Mya provided a cool, controlled alternative to the more effusively emotional Whitney and Mariah.

Child Actor are one of those acts currently making a mockery of the idea of the big budget and the expensive studio: the tracks on Victory sound huge, lush and impressively "professional". Ogilvy and Heath are being credited with "breathing life into R&B" but they're hardly the first to reinvestigate and reinvigorate the genre – in fact, you could easily argue that, after How to Dress Well, the Weeknd, Grimes, Nite Jewel, Polica et al, indie-fying R&B is less a radical notion than an entirely outplayed one. But Child Actor do it well, incorporating elements of electronica from synth-pop to Skrillex. Ogilvy's vocals are often Auto-Tuned and only lightly melismatic, the rest of the time relying on a breathy whisper that is calculatedly wan. At times they sound like Kraftwerk fronted by a depressed Dusty. Saint Etienne, basically. The titles are familiar verging on shopworn (Release Me – what, again?), but that may be a deliberate bid to recontextualise old (original/60s) R&B tropes by placing them in a modern setting. Despite being in danger of drowning the listener in sugar, Heath is always at hand with an angular beat or a keyboard bloop to make sure things are never too saccharine. "Would you like to sleep with me?" Ogilvy sings at one point, which, given the proximity of her cousin, is more creepy than sweet. You might even say it's bizarre – Therese Bazaar.

The buzz: "Psychedelifunk under the kinetic moon" – MTV Iggy.

The truth: They treat R&B like a (Shirley) temple.

Most likely to: Give you back their heart.

Least likely to: Hold hands in black and white.

What to buy: Victory is released by Fake Four on 16 October.

File next to: Class Actress, Purity Ring, Grimes, Polica.

Links: facebook.com/childactor. - The Guardian