The Next Big Thing: Architecture In Helsinki

Nancy and I went to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah last friday. We saw them and dug them, but we discovered one of the openers: Architecture In Helsinki.

It might take a while for the average indie kid to open up to Architecture in Helsinki. The X-piece (8 members? 6? Who knows!) Melbourne collective makes music to baby talk to, could score a Miyazaki film about Carebears, and whisper-sing through half of their songs, all while rolling deeper than Wu-Tang. And while their sickly-sweet, sugar-rushed "twee pop" (Hey! I learned what "twee" means!) might sometimes come off a little naïve or juvenile, I’ll be damned if the third grade ever sounded this compelling or, despite what kids these days are into, scandalous.

Now be cautioned, admittedly Cameron Bird (for lack of a better term, the band's 'front man") is a little hard to get used to with his off-key faerie castrato singing sighs, but Kellie Sutherland more than makes up for it with a vocal performance that ranks amongst the most tactful and alluring backing-vocalist displays since Neko met Carl. Don't believe me? Check out Fingers Crossed's “Scissor Paper Rock,” which employs an intention-laden scene-setting jazz guitar and stars Ms. Perfect, who quickly outwits her antagonist with wordplay like: “You’re seeking repair/For figure eights in the ice in your stare.”

Go buy Fingers Crossed (their debut album). You'll hear it too... their music is perfectly contented, but twisted in knots by ambiguous, secretive lyrics. We’re thus left to our own devices to fill in the gaps -assuming we want to play this scandalous game in the first place- and that’s probably what we’ll start doing after a month of taking in the slick, detailed instrumentation. Have I mentioned how dense their recordings are? Or that each member (accomplished musicians all) takes a turn on multiple instruments, including the trombone and what is almost certainly a Jack In The Box? The care put into all aspects of this project gives it a rare longevity. Most albums are quickly tossed aside for the next, but you can’t help but feel involved in Fingers Crossed; you’re hooked immediately after exposure like your after that first Dawson’s Creek episode. What's more, you'll find that the charm of the record’s conveyed innocence and quest for sincerity alludes to a certain social high road... but the band is too mischievous to get bogged down in always doing “the right thing” over what feels right; it’s just that “the right thing” and “what feels right” are one and the same in Architecture In Helsinki’s little apple tree garden of sculpted morality.

If tha has to be so rarely true in life, at least it's always true when you listen to Architecture In Helsinki.