Architecture In Helsinki: A Snapshot of a Moment

words by Ryan Ffrench
photos by Victor Yiu

It is not easy to keep Architecture in Helsinki in one place. They are a band that relentlessly change genres, constantly alter their line-up, habitually move from city to city, and have made on-stage instrument switching into a widely celebrated art form. Call it a triumph of imaginative photography, then, that we managed to trap them all in that vending machine for long enough to learn a little about the motivational factors behind all this creative dynamism. As lead singer/songwriter Cameron Bird explains, their music is not deliberately elusive or abstrusely pretentious, they just “like music that takes a lot of listens to appreciate what’s going on.” And in an indie music world increasingly influenced by commercialized accessibility, this is a genuinely refreshing approach.