Building on fire

I spent last evening at the Great American Music Hall, where Architecture in Helsinki took the stage. I had heard only scant bits of their music before, and I admit attending largely on buzz.

After meeting the Boss for a round at the redoubtable Route 101 (actually, it's just doubtable), I arrived at the GAMH just in time for Tussle's all-instrumental set. Wish we'd stayed at the bar longer. I liked their double-drummer interaction just fine, but on the whole their set proved to be quite monotonous, with two-note electronic grooves and funny noises on top of the energetic drumming. I'm afraid I wasn't on the right drugs for this one. They were like a jam band that didn't jam. Maybe it works on record. Didn't work for me here. Amorphous and dull.

Architecture in Helsinki is an eight-piece group featuring up to three horns, a percussionist and a drummer, usually keyboards, usually bass, and a guitarist-singer. I'm pretty sure I saw a wood flute up there late in the set, and there were certainly some other things floating around onstage. Their songs are rife with tempo shifts sudden and gradual, hooks buried and unburied, melodies lost and found. (Although the horns are always hooky, the singer isn't always melodic.) The group members often shift or trade instruments (even mid-song), leading to a cheerfully chaotic scene onstage. Variously during the evening, I thought of them as a redeemed Arcade Fire (without the funerary thing), a controlled Polyphonic Spree (without the choir), and a potential conclusion of what Here Are The Facts You Requested set out to do. (Also: One false radio-friendly move, and they could have a Dexy's Midnight Runners-like hit.) I even thought of the Human League at one moment. Boss said he thought the singer sounded like Colin Hay, but I never quite heard it that way; he also noted some Cure-like moments, which I can agree with although I never really liked the Cure.

This was a fun night. The band eventually wound up playing its finale with about 20 people up there, including some invited (and some uninvited?) guests from the audience banging on triangles and whatnot. I can't say I ever really caught onto the band's lyrical content, although I could see that their serious fans were singing along with every word. Worth my time and money.


FMFM: Billy Preston's bumpin', clavinet-driven "Outa-Space," which should really be called "I wish I wrote 'Superstition' but Stevie Wonder already did it." Awesome kick drum on this early-70s instrumental.