With a new, exuberant album to promote, Australian combo Architecture in Helsinki has been building bridges with music festivals around the world. Jim Carrollgets in a few words between gigs with founder Cameron Bird.
CAMERON Bird pauses for a moment to confirm to himself just exactly what country he's in. If it's Monday it must be Portugal. The previous day Bird and his band, Architecture in Helsinki, played the eco-friendly Oyafest in Oslo's Medieval Park. But that was yesterday.
By the time AIH turn up in Co Laois for the Electric Picnic, they will also have appeared at festivals in Belgium, Poland, Cambridge, Cologne and Helsinki. Ahead of an appearance at the Festival de Paredes de Coura north of Porto, Bird is interrupting his dinner for yet another phone interview.
It's Architecture in Helsinki's first time on the European festival circuit, and Bird admits it does have a certain random novelty value. "We've already toured the United States and Australia this year, so we're used to a routine like this with, what, 10 festival appearances in two weeks."
The reason for the current bout of extreme touring is Places Like This, the Australian band's third album. A dizzying and exuberant set of sherbert-flavoured prog-pop, the album has songs in abundance to go with the childlike silliness that has always been one of AIH's more charming calling cards.
It's certainly less twee than their previous work and, Bird explains, more in line with the music they've been listening to.
"It's probably a lot more dance-oriented, because we all listen to a lot of dance music, like reggaeton or house or disco. We still love pop music and the songs, but when we're playing live, we're a lot more into the more upbeat and dance-oriented numbers in the set because of the energy in the room. On this album, we wanted more of that energy."
That Places Like Thisworks so well, and the six-strong collective gel so emphatically, belies the fact that the album was written via e-mail and instant messenger. After their last release (2005's In Case We Die) and tour, band founder Bird moved to New York and work on the new album had to be done without face to face contact.
"I was writing songs in the middle of a New York summer," he says, "and I think that totally impacted on the way the songs turned out."
Bird admits that he can't write songs while on tour.
"Occasionally, a seed will be sown, but I usually wait till the end of the tour, when I should be sleeping. When I'm touring I'm storing up all the experiences which can create such sparks and waiting for the right time to make sense of them. I find you're not in the right frame of mind to do that when your days involve long road trips and soundchecks.
"You hear of people taking loads of drugs and staying up for six days and being at the peak of their creativity, but that's not me. I'd prefer to go to sleep for six months and then I'd probably feel at my most creative when I'm not completely exhausted."
He says both album and band benefited from the fact that they had a sharp, highly focused two-week recording session.
"There was definitely a lot less studio nonsense because of that. This time, because of the distance, everything was a lot more focused. When we got together, we had the songs ready to go. It was recorded live, and it has a really different energy. It's more energetic and has more of a tight-rock-machine feel."
The band began life as an eight-strong outfit, and recent amicable changes involved two members leaving the fold. Yet even a six-piece face serious, often prohibitive travel and subsistence costs with long-distance tours, though Bird says it's not as bad as it once was. "The finances have definitely got better as time goes on. We toured a lot in the last few years and it's paid off. But if it hadn't worked out, we would all be looking for office jobs by now."
Bird points to the internet as one important marketing and promotional resource for a band like AIH.
"I think it really has levelled the playing field for bands like us. I know there are a lot of complaints about how the internet has meant the death of the record label or whatever, but it hasn't been that way for us. Thanks to the internet, more people are listening to music than ever before. They may not be buying as many records and CDs, but they're going to live shows and probably listening to music more passionately than they have in the past."
When Bird was growing up on a farm outside Melbourne, his only way of accessing new music was via whatever the local radio DJs would play. Now he marvels at the idea of how accessible his band's music has become, thanks to the internet.
"Truth be told, as an indie band from a small town in Australia, there's no way that we could have considered playing a show in Ireland or Alaska 10 years ago and expect people to know our songs. It's a really exciting time for someone like us because people can access our music so easily and readily and find out about us.
"Like everyone else, we don't know where it's going, but we know we're onboard for the ride."
See/Hear
Listen to Architecture in Helsinki on architectureinhelsinki.com/video and on
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXIzyquw-kc (Do The Whirlwind)
They play the Electric Picnic on September 1st . Places Like Thisis out now on Tallem Blend/Co-Op
