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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.”
The recording process also produced new possibilities for the band whilst the way in which they worked on this record was in complete contrast to their previous efforts. “We did it in a couple of weeks which for us…we’ve always taken forever to record, and it’s kind of been more of a hobby recording but this is the first time that we didn’t record ourselves, we had an engineer and so that changed it a lot for us because we’re used to being behind the controls and taking as long as we wanted but it was great because we were kind of under pressure to finish it and I guess that made it more spontaneous because you didn’t have time to think about what was going on.”
The band’s listening is as eclectic as you might expect, the list of what influenced the record includes “Caribbean music, a lot of reggae, and we listen to a lot of hip hop – probably more hip hop than anything else, and a lot of 70’s and 80’s punk bands.” Cameron adds, “I guess with us, there’s so many of us, so there’s so many influences. There isn’t really one that stands out, and the way our influences are too, it’s never a conscious thing, it’s more subconscious, so probably more things that soak in” Whilst the list of artists they currently admire include “Animal Collective, Late Of The Pier – saw those guys recently and they’re amazing, The Fiery Furnaces, Gang Gang Dance, James Murphy is an amazing talent, Hot Chip, Max Tundra, YACHT…tonnes of people.”
The band themselves have found their own famous – and somewhat surprising – admirer in Bruce Willis. Asked recently for his favourite new bands he listed Architecture In Helsinki, The Strokes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I ask Cameron what his reaction was to this news but I’ve barely uttered the actor’s name and he’s already chuckling. “It’s hilarious! It still makes me laugh every time I hear it. My mum was excited; I used to love Die Hard when I was a kid. It’s pretty amazing and hilarious to think that anyone like that has even heard our music.”
Beyond the release of the album the band’s plans include a lot of touring and festival dates. Musing on the band’s previous festival experiences, Cameron details, “Festivals are always super stressful for us because we have so much gear. And you kind of get thrown in on stage, and it’s kind of anything can happen. In a way it’s really exhilarating because that not knowing what’s going to happen makes it exciting. It’s never good to play in a middle of a day, it’s kind of harsh and not very flattering, you get a lot of sweat. I love playing festivals and I love going to festivals and it’s kind of weird, it’s a very humane kind of environment, it’s very different to playing a club because you get a lot of people that don’t usually go and see music. We’ve played some really nice festivals in Germany that are small and on the edge of a lake. We’ve never played to more than 10, 000 people so we’ve never got to a stage where we’re playing to a 100, 000 people. I hope that never happens.”
“The thing is with festivals as well is we’re not a rock and roll band – we have elements of that but not a standard band so usually when we play at festivals for the first half of our set people usually stare at us and are like…. ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ Which is cool. I actually like the challenge of trying to get an audience get into your music.”
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