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Thrill Builds in Jakarta for Architecture in Helsinki
Marcel Thee | February 21, 2012

Cameron Bird, Sam Perry, Jamie Mildren, Gus Franklin, and Kellie Sutherland are the final five members of a band that has contained three to eight people at various times. They play in Jakarta on March 10. (Photo courtesy of Architecture in Helsinki) Cameron Bird, Sam Perry, Jamie Mildren, Gus Franklin, and Kellie Sutherland are the final five members of a band that has contained three to eight people at various times. They play in Jakarta on March 10. (Photo courtesy of Architecture in Helsinki)
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Normalaatsra
2:44pm Feb 22, 2012

Last year there is an influx of unknown American bands that only hipsters know. How come they get the demand? Do they actually know the concert company's people?

I would like to bring my own favorites one day, but that would not do because every person in general is a hipster in Jakarta.


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The influx of popular and edgy bands visiting this part of the world is not winding down anytime soon.

Indie-pop band favorite Architecture in Helsinki will be performing in Indonesia for the first time with a show at Bengkel Night Park in South Jakarta on March 10. The gig is sure to excite the city’s ever-growing population of music fans.

The Australian quintet’s brand of eclectic pop caught on quickly across the country. Formed from the ashes of a short-lived, so-called “grunge-funk” group called Pixel Mittens, the band’s members are vocalist Cameron Bird, guitarist Jamie Mildren, and bass player Sam Perry. By the time the longtime friends outgrew their country New South Wales surroundings, they migrated to Melbourne, primarily to satisfy leader Bird’s urge to expand his creative outlet.

Along with his newly-acquainted song writing partner James Cecil, who Bird met at university in a video editing class, they founded Architecture in Helsinki. No longer gratified with playing rowdy tunes with touches of funk, Bird became enthralled by the limitless possibilities of his new project.

The band’s official membership at the time rose to a whopping eight members, including the inclusion of female vocalists and multi-instrumentalists. This large ensemble would continue to function as a unit until 2006, when band members Isobel Knowles and Tara Shackell left. Cecil departed in 2008.

Named after a Kerouac-like session of cutting and pasting random words out of a newspaper, Architecture in Helsinki’s early material dwelled in a sort of hushed chamber pop. Breezy tune flourishes of brass-heavy instruments, such as xylophones, glockenspiels, woodwinds, and clarinets, among many others, laid atop Bird’s falsetto-like whispers and subtle electronics. The rather generic term “indie pop” was applied to the band’s early, quieter period, which was perfectly captured in their first official release, 2003’s “Fingers Crossed.”

The record was warmly received globally, with allmusic.com claiming it was “a charming debut that should please anyone who likes creative indie pop.”

That creativity is also evident in their sophomore album, memorably titled “In Case We Die,” released in 2005. In a change from the debut’s calming nuance, it contains more upbeat songs and even more sophisticated baroque-style arrangements. It was again critically praised, and even spawned a remix album, “We Died, They Remixed.”

In “Places Like This,” released in 2007 after the departure of Knowles and Shackell, the band boosted its electronic nuance and headed in a more danceable and increasingly experimental direction. Although the band has always dabbled in mixing whimsical melodies, faux-naivete, marching band-like percussiveness, and raucous grooves, the record showcased an undeniable ability to amalgamate those disparate styles into what can only be described as tribal electronic baroque-pop.

The band’s latest release was 2011’s “Moment Bends,” a record that adds ’80s synth-pop into the mix. The new sound has a roughly equal share of fans and detractors, though Bird considers it a natural result of the band’s music.

“ ‘Moment Bends’ was what came out of us naturally that said, there was a very strong focus on pop production values,” Bird explains.

When asked how the record reflects the band currently, Bird explains it as a mixture of conflicting emotions.

“It says ‘I’m confident and contented and sad and excited.’ ”

Whatever it may be, it is safe to say that Architecture in Helsinki has a significant fan-base in Indonesia, with the hype about its show rampant months before they are to set foot here.

Bird is confident that the show will be a unique experience for their Indonesian fans, whose energy will hopefully translate over to the band onstage.

“Each Country and each city reacts to music differently,” he said. “Our job as performers is to feed off of that energy. So, seeing us play in Mexico City is going to be a very different performance to seeing us in Moscow.”

And the fact that it’s the band’s first time here isn’t lost on Bird. He knows the fans expect a lot.

“This will be my first time [in Indonesia.] So I’m very excited to be there,” he said.

Architecture In Helsinki
Live In Jakarta
Saturday, March 10, from 8 p.m.
Bengkel Night Park
Tickets from Rp 300,000 ($33). Call 0856 152 1646 for information.




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