Grand Designs - Architecture In Helsinki

Let us for a moment step back to 2005. This is the year in which Architecture In Helsinki release their second album ‘In Case We Die’. It’s met with much critical acclaim, whilst their brand of intelligent, innovative pop music brings them comparisons to The Fiery Furnaces, Animal Collective and Arcade Fire. Their sound however is wonderfully idiosyncratic and much more unashamedly fun than their peers. It’s the sort of record that could be produced by only the most over imaginative of minds: it’s bursting with energy and creativity, flitting through more musical genres than you can shake a stick at. They strike you as the sort of band that wouldn’t want to stay in the same place for too long.

Now return to the present. Gigwise is sitting with frontman Cameron Bird in Hoxton Bar And Kitchen where the band are playing the launch night for their follow up to ‘In Case We Die’ – the brilliant ‘Places Like This’. The new record is a move away from their previous work - it’s funkier and sometimes darker but it’s still unmistakeably Architecture In Helsinki. “In comparison to our last album it’s a lot more intense, it’s a lot more colourful, it’s a lot louder and it’s a lot more direct…it doesn’t waffle on as much. It’s just to the point a lot more.” says Cameron.

He says of the band’s evolution since the last record: “It’s just naturally the way we progressed from playing live a lot because we used to be more of a studio band, but now we’ve toured so much the way that our songs ended up sounding is the result of touring that much. When you play a show that’s the hour of the day where you get to exert yourself, it just meant that we were playing with a lot more vigour and everything was a lot more intense.”

Although it may not have been a conscious decision to see a change in direction from their previous album it’s clear that the band would not be content with just churning out the same old stuff each record. We ask if they felt any pressure in having to follow up ‘In Case We Die’. The frank response: “We have too many ideas with what we want to do to feel pressurised into trying to recreate something. It’s like so exciting for us to make records the thought of us trying to do something better then what we did before doesn’t really enter it.”

The album also saw a new approach to song writing for the band, partly adopted as a result of band members living so far apart (members were located in New York, San Francisco and Sao Paulo). “We wrote the record over email and on the internet together and in a way that was the easiest thing we’ve ever done song writing-wise. I guess a lot of times in the past when you’ve got a big group of people in a room together and everyone’s got different ideas it makes it difficult but when you’re writing by email it means that when they put it in the midst you take it for the idea and not for the person or whatever problems you’re having, and so it’s just a lot more clear. It meant that the songs came out a lot stronger.”