Architecture in Helsinki, Moment Bends
Reviewed By: Chris Polley
No one means to lose track of things; it just happens. Some newer shinier thing gets favored by the human brain over some older, more familiar (but unfortunately now inherently duller) thing all the time. If we weren’t able to acknowledge this, it would be no big deal, but we can, and we do often, and thus we are devastated over and over again by our own inability to retain, to be loyal, and to stay the same. This is an especially applicable formula when it comes to music and artists from our college years, I feel. Those bands you loved in middle school and high school? At least you know what happened to them, either from the periphery media or from your friends. But those you obsessed over during one of if not the most vital transition in your life from adolescent to adulthood? You just stopped paying attention at some point.
Architecture in Helsinki, the Sydney-based twee-pop collective, falls into this ill-fated category for me. Their first two records, Fingers Crossed and In Case We Die, respectively, came to me late in my university days, but they left an indelible and almost conclusive mark on my musical appreciation, at a time in my life that I’d argue was most likely my most intense and voracious era of music consumption. I had spent an unhealthy amount of hours during this three-year span taking in all sorts of music, but particularly “challenging” works by experimental, progressive, and/or minimalist artists. In short, I was thirsty for something more than pop music, a rather all-encompassing genre that I felt I had exhausted of by 2004-ish, though could certainly still appreciate from a distance. Well that weird smarty-pants stuff exhausts one (or at least it did me) a lot faster than any amount of bubbly melodies and catchy riffs ever could. But I didn’t want to just revert back to square one and grab the first power pop record off the virtual shelf. I subconsciously yearned for a band that celebrated as much as they dissected, and eventually my path led me to a ragtag group of art-popsters, if art-pop could be created with the musical equivalents of finger paints and Magna-Doodles.
Without going on and on about the many magnificent Architecture in Helsinki live shows I experienced (hint: it was all of them) or how I finally came to peace with the idea that music could be intellectually stimulating and physically sensational simultaneously with the help of the band, let’s get to the skinny: at some point I let go. I didn’t even notice I did either. I entered the work force, kept listening to many bands, including a number of old favorites that somehow evaded the temptations to forgot of the ol’ brain box, but not AiH. I’d like to say it’s because at the very tail end of the aforementioned “phase” (if it could be called as such) I heard the upcoming single “Do the Whirlwind” for the band’s third album Places Like This and (for the lack of a better colloquialism) got bad vibes from its glossy and almost funky approach to the deconstructed pop song. I’d like to say it’s because other, better band came along and natural selection gave them the win over a weaker competitor for brain space from the past. But really the truth is much simpler, and much scarier: forgetting just happens every once in a while.
“Escapee”
So there I sat last month, trying to come up with a short list of the albums I anticipated the most by request of AudioSuede’s editor, and as I racked my noodle and my Google, I suddenly came across the name Architecture in Helsinki. It had been a while, so the choice was simple. I now had something to look forward to. It was like friending a childhood crush on Facebook but without the awkward repercussions; if the old feelings of ramshackle wildness combined with sweetly cultivated melodic structure weren’t revived, I could simply turn it off and chalk it up to an unreliable memory. But while forgetting is as scary as it is unavoidable, it also begets some of the most pleasant surprises in one’s lifetime. If we didn’t forget what it felt like to wake up to presents from loved ones underneath the Christmas tree every year, the rituals of December 25th would get so old that we’d eventually stop doing them. And if we eventually stop doing them, if someone tangentially reminds us of the joys of Christmas day, we’d be likely to bring back the tradition and feel joyful and fuzzy all over again, just like we did when we were young.
“Desert Island”
And oh how it felt like giant boxes wrapped in bright colors topped with big shiny bows about twenty minutes after hitting play on the band’s fourth full-length release, Moment Bends. Once again I feel a propensity to come up with timely the-universe-is-random excuses as to why listening to an old staple from my early 20s worked so positively for me here on this unsuspecting day in April of 2011: I was preoccupied with other projects and its awesomeness snuck up on me, recent personal problems have led me to once again secretly desire something both fun and emotive, etc. The real truth at the core of this, however, is simply that I was meant to reconvene with these wacky sonic thespians at some point in my life. Whether it was meant to happen now, later, or earlier is up for debate, but ultimately it’s moot. I am here and so are the jostling and slinky sounds of one of the past decade’s most criminally underrated acts.
Does it match the highest highs of those first two records? Well of course not. The overly clean and crisp production values (now on Downtown, a label with much high distribution and commercial viability than their previous homegrown label, Polyvinyl) emphasize more party sensibilities than I think the band truly has. They felt much more at home with dusty harpsichords and messy interludes before gut-busting choruses, but they apparently experienced a major line-up change, which happened during my AiH amnesia, so the changes are understandable and in no way wholly detrimental to the core ethic and principals of the band. Even “That Beep”, a song that I actually heard in passing back in 2008 when it was released along with an EP of remixes, which sounds downright like it was trying to combine chillwave with afrobeat, still retains the silly yet heartfelt foundation the Australians built their sound on. Yet while not perfect by any means, depreciation is just as real and probable as memory failure, so these minor gripes cannot be taken too seriously. My instincts still tell me that Moment Bends will at the very least symbolize a turning point, a reminder to me and my past self that just because we forget doesn’t meant it has to be forever.