CD CHOICE: You Are All I See Vagrant ***

Pat Grossi makes music that reaches for the sky. You can clock this in the way his remarkably celestial falsetto soars over the tracks. It’s also there in the heartbreaking beauty of the electronic and harp-aided ambience that coats every track on the New Jersey native’s debut album.

This is music that wants to touch the sky and do a spot of cloudbusting while it’s there.

There are precedents for what Grossi is all about. While some will hear the acute minimalism of James Blake in these tunes, or draw lines to other peers playing footsie with RB ideas and idioms, it pays to go much farther back and see how Grossi has approximated the artier angles of Talk Talk and Kate Bush for his scintillating, thrilling sound. The notion of combining electronic washes, small-hours moods and ethereal, choirboyish vocals didn’t just appear on the horizon with the current crop of pretenders.

What's even more remarkable about You Are All I Seeis how it grabs your attention. Much modern minimalism seems crafted with the background in mind, but again and again Grossi sweeps you away from whatever you're doing and plants you firmly in his world. The title track is a perfect example of this, with its heavenly coos and sighs, as are Hanging On(a wonderful, shapely melody with aching, spot-on soulful adds from How to Dress Well) and Shield & Sword(the brooding cinematic blur here fits well with the heft of Grossi's pitch).

Throughout, Grossi does an awful lot with a little. When you analyse tracks such as Hanging Onand Way Too Fast, there may ultimately be little on the table, yet Grossi works these subtle, nimble, sparse elements into a magnificent soaring, roaring sound. It's church music for unbelievers, a quasi-religious state of bliss for the unholy masses. Prepare to be enlightened. See activechildmusic.com

Download tracks: You Are All I See, Hanging On, Shield & Sword