:: Track Listing

1. One Heavy February
2. Souvenirs
3. Imaginary Ordinary
4. Scissor Paper Rock
5. To and Fro
6. Spring 2008
7. The Owls Go
8. Fumble
9. Kindling
10. It's Almost a Trap
11. Like a Call
12. Where You've Been Hiding
13. City Calm Down
14. Vanishing

:: Record Review

Architecture in Helsinki

Fingers Crossed
(Bar/None; 2004)

Rating: 80%
Combined Rating: 71%


It might take a while for the average indie kid to open up to Architecture in Helsinki. The X-piece 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 might sometimes come off a little naïve or juvenile, I’ll be damned if grade three ever sounded this compelling or, despite what kids these days are into, scandalous.

With Fingers Crossed, you know you’re in for something a little different as soon as you open the gatefold. A seizure-inducing chart is found on the inside sleeve documenting the instrument use for each song. The most sparse track, “Imaginary Ordinary," employs a Roland JX3P synth, a Casio SKE sampling keyboard, a clarinet, and an electric guitar. “Fumble,” on the other hand is the best example I’ve yet to hear of the combined use of a Roland SH-101 synth, drums, melodica, vibraphone, tuba, glockenspiel, flute, bass recorder, trumpet, trombone, bass guitar, nylon string guitar, 12 string acoustic guitar, and, finally, steel string acoustic guitar. And then there are tracks which feature thumb pianos and a tap dancer but, to the band’s credit, nothing ever sounds claustrophobic nor contrived; this is one streamlined kitchen sink.

Now be cautioned, admittedly Cameron Bird is a little hard to get used to with his off-key faerie castrato singing sighs, but female vocalist Kellie Sutherland more than makes up for it by giving an album-long performance that ranks amongst the most tactful and alluring backing-vocalist displays since Neko met Carl. In fact, the album’s best song, “Scissor Paper Rock,” 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.” Chocolate-dipped barbs so pointed only come from time spent mulling over one’s significant other, and here we realize that the boyfriend---“Grass stained and drunk on the ground"---probably left a mess of some sort on the songwriter’s personal effects and she just had to tell someone about it.

And that’s the thing: every song here seems to be the product of the stuff that diary entries are made of. No sooner is a given situation elucidated than it is blindfolded and spun in a new direction by the turn of an abstracted phrase. New relationships are awkward, break-ups have silver linings. "Fumble" tells the story of two best friends who secretly lust for one another, using the personal tragedy of a breakup to transform their relationship: “There’s tension in this room/ We’ll have butterflies soon/ Fumbling around in the dark with a flashlight.” The tension between the two is never fully revealed as being grounded in heartbreak or sexual tension, but five bucks says they started making out right then and there.

It continues on highlights like "Kindling" ("On my mattress I’ve been drawing a line/ Where I’ll shut my eyes and where you should lie/ If you should lie") and "Like A Call" (The place is a fountain/ Youth you’re squealing/ Offering advice that sounds appealing/ Nervous fun/ 'Cept the cheating’s in your blood and the hardest word is love"), to name just two, until you begin to realize that what we have here isn’t mythological innocence per se, but a musical soap opera (that phrase should be redundant, but it’s not) that repeatedly captures those first fiery weeks of any romantic affair where things are pure and uncomplicated and not even betrayed better halves can ruin your day.

And no I’m not ashamed for perving into the lives of AIH’s countless members: the listener can’t help but try to wriggle into a reasonable interpretation of these touching songs that never do identifiably touch on much at all. In fact, that’s the buried treasure in Fingers Crossed: each song seems painstakingly culled from a twisted little moment in the writer’s life but, at the same time, is poetically detached one degree too far from reality for the eavesdropping listener to pin it down. The music is so 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.

Indeed, the care put into all aspects of this project give 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 first Dawson’s Creek episode. Furthermore the charm of the record’s conveyed innocence and quest for sincerity---if sometimes overshadowed by overbaked puerility---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 AIH’s little apple tree garden of sculpted morality.

Aaron Newell :: 25 August 2004 |