Architecture in Helsinki plays around like they’re children.  They have handclaps in their music, neon puppets in their videos, a lead female singer with a voice like a child and a lead male singer with a voice like a growly monster.  Usually I would go into a rant about how their kid-like music can be stripped away to reveal a pulsating heart and deep meaning, but with them, I’m won’t.  Because I don’t see one.  Their music is fun and wild and sometimes, especially in the summertime, you want to don’t want to search for any metaphors underneath the shiny costumes.

The first thing people ask Architecture in Helsinki is if they are from Finland.  The answer is no.  The band is Australian, based out of a Melbourne suburb.  They didn’t even play in Finland until 2007, more than eight years after the band was established.  The band is used to the questions about their name—Finland was especially perplexed.   

The band is composed of five members: Cameron Bird, Gus Franklin, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry and Kellie Sutherland.  They play a huge variety of instruments including synthesizer, glockenspiel, trumpet, tuba, clarinet, saxophone and recorder.  The band formed in late 1990s, but they didn’t release their first full-length album, Fingers Crossed, until 2003.

Architecture in Helsinki released a new album, Moment Bends, in April of 2011 and is currently on a world tour to promote it.  They travel through the eastern United States this week and then move on to Europe and Russia throughout the rest of the summer. 

On their website, they keep what they call a “Diary” where you can follow their tour’s stops, but it’s just a bunch of pictures.  That’s fine—a picture of a band member with bread, another with a basketball standing near a little boy in Belgium is a more fitting portrait of who Architecture in Helsinki is than any words would be. 

Enough about who Architecture in Helsinki is as a band.  Let’s get to more about what they do:

“Heart It Races”

 

This song featured two more members that have since left the band.  They use an additional instrument on this song that they’ve employed on a lot of their other stuff: vocal percussion bass “bum-bum-bums” underneath the main melodies.  The song sounds like they are banging on trashcans and xylophones, as well, and the part of the song that appears to be the climax culminates in a scream.  This video is amazing, as well, with all the band members dressed in black wearing neon puppets on their front.  Halfway through, blacklight lets the puppets dance on their own.

“Hold Music”

This song really exemplifies the simplicity of the band. In the video, they are all dressed in shiny costumes that look they a crossbreed of marching band uniforms and that shiny material used in little kids’ Halloween costumes.  The gritty male voice again is in contrast with the tiny lead singers’.  The video’s concept is centered around jumping on the trampoline.  During the main lyrics of the song—“Hold music”—the band members are frozen for a second in the video and then jiggled around on the screen during the remix.

“That Beep”

 

The most ambitious video concept of Architecture in Helsinki’s, this one features blue people that perform activities and freeze at various, lyrically-fitting times in the video. 

If you get a chance to see Architecture in Helsinki live, do it.  But don’t forget the neon.  And the clown glasses.