After a scintillating sellout concert at Temple Music Centre last year, Architecture in Helsinki return to Dublin showcasing songs from their In Case We Die album with an intimate performance at The Village.

Elvis Costello once said that great rock music is trying to be something, gets lost on the way and becomes something totally new.

Architecture in Helsinki holds to this manifesto with firm resolve creating a pop sound that is fresh and exciting while paying their respects from everything from Krautrock to Soul music to Burt Bacharach.

Hailing from Australia, Architecture in Helsinki took embryonic shape in the early '90s as a teenage grunge group inspired by Led Zeppelin and Primus called The Pixel Kittens featuring the musical talents of Cameron Bird, Jamie Mildren and Sam Perry.  

After The Pixel Mittens broke up, Bird took up the acoustic guitar, began writing songs, jamming with Perry and Mildren, and finally saw the light when he bought his first electric guitar.

Aided and abetted by James Cecil, Kellie Sutherland, Tara Shackell, Gus Franklin and Isobel Knowles, Bird & Co. formed Architecture in Helsinki and began creating a sound mergeing the pop intelligence of Belle & Sebastian, the sonic ambition of The Go Team and the unstoppable ensemble excitement of The Polyphonic Spree.

With a chamber pop style featuring everything from glockenspiel, tuba, clarinet and recorder, Architecture in Helsinki made an instant impact on the Australian music scene and set about recording their debut in 2002 in a variety of places ranging from beach houses to proper studios.

Featuring a wonderful collage of sounds and styles, Fingers Crossed was released in 2004 by Bar None and was hailed by music critics for quirky pop classics like "Souvenirs", "Imaginary Ordinary" and "Owls Go".

After a year of solidly touring around Australia and North America supporting Fingers Crossed, Architecture in Helsinki decamped to their studio, Supermelodyworld with a junk shop of instruments to start work on their second album.

Utilising bassoons, xylophones, melodicas, power saws and angle grinders, Architecture in Helsinki dived deep into the history music picking a myriad of different musical styles to create the majestic pop sound of In Case We Die.

In Case We Die takes up the promise of Fingers Crossed by expanding their sound to create a record brimful of great ideas and infectious tunes likes "It'5", "Cemetery", "Need to Shout" and "Frenchy, I'm Faking.

A night of non-stop ensemble pop, Architecture in Helsinki play The Village on the 14^th.

Architecture in Helsinki
The Village
Buy Tickets

Time: 8pm
Tickets: €18

Tickets are available from Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.ie

The Village
26 Wexford St,
Dublin 2.
Tel: 1890 2000 78

The Village