Paper plates have been liberally smeared with bright yellow icing. Blue cocktail napkins, sticky and balled, float in partially consumed cups of apple juice. Shreds of wrapping paper and ribbon dot the lawn, abandoned sacks of loot topple over into the flower bed, candy necklaces and pink rubber balls slowly spill into the topsoil. Children run at full speed, in every direction. And on a cheap portable stereo, Architecture in Helsinki's debut, Fingers Crossed, starts to spin, each bit of gleefully bizarre pop somehow blending perfectly into the haphazard hollers of cake-stuffed toddlers, mirroring their soft mania, providing what might be the only appropriate soundtrack to a throwdown attended exclusively by knee-high tots no longer wearing their shoes.
While goofy backyard birthday parties have long been rendered formulaic, chalked up as another standardized offshoot of American minivan culture, Fingers Crossed is an oddly surprising invention, curiously unparalleled and quietly compelling: In a rapidly changing landscape, it's rare to stumble onto a record that actually sounds new, and Architecture in Helsinki have managed to take "neo-psych" to entirely unforeseen levels of blippy eccentricity. Ultimately, what's most disarming about the band's brand of blissful musing is that it's so stupidly pleasant to listen to: Melding lilting harmonies, sweet, high-pitched synthesizers, tittering percussion, and assorted woodwinds, Architecture lay out a weird and whimsical electro-pop buffet, effortless yet perplexing.
A collective of eight Australians (five men, three women), Architecture tote around a massive pile of gear-- xylophone, flute, four different kinds of guitar, glockenspiel, trumpet, tuba, trombone, assorted synths, melodica, thumb piano, clarinet, recorder, bass, and various drums, their tinny din augmented only by a mess of vocals (including contributions by some craggy-voiced kids), handclaps, tap dancers, and finger snaps. It's impossible to understand the group without understanding their pile of stuff and the penchant for tinkles and beeps it so blatantly implies; despite employing more than thirty noisemakers and a diverse choir of age-ranged voices, Fingers Crossed manages to end up sounding excessive and slight at the very same time. The combination is beautifully baffling.
Credit the band's songwriting prowess: "The Owl's Go" is Fingers Crossed's brilliant creative apex, an insane and addictive menagerie of sounds, melodies, and gleeful circus bits-- listening feels a little like cracking open the mind of a manic-depressive in full-on hysteria, climbing inside while he shakes with joy, elated to the point of drooling. The track starts with a whispered two-voice countdown, figures tap-shoes-and-finger-clicks-as-percussion, and then positions flute, jangly guitar, finger snaps, xylophone, a smattering of boy/girl voices, shouting children, and sighs as prominently as possible. While the rest of Fingers Crossed never quite matches this high, there are other notable moments: "Fumble" is a goofy-but-engaging tuba-heavy celebration, and "Like a Call", with its muted beats and meandering bassline, is an inadvertently touching promise.
But just as benign backyard clowns have earned a spot in pre-adolescent nightmares, there's something sort of terrifying about Architecture in Helsinki's strung-out ecstasy. The band's incessant squeaking could make Fingers Crossed become vaguely unbearable, overwhelming in its promise of total, uncompromised happiness. Still, like any good birthday binge or uncanny high, it's worth the hangover. You might swear you'll never touch it again. But you so will.
