http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxjcszKEcHE
Architecture In Helsinki: Their perpetual subtle and explicit moments when what-went-before is not the same as what's-happening-now lend a delectable taste of invention to most of their recordings.
"Contact High" continues their tradition of inventiveness, but with an air of sophistication that is inspired.
Previously, AIH were tribal wildlings, barely honing magically coincidental moments of order out of a chaos that seemed derived from whatever was hanging around and useful. Then, as I understand it, band leader Cameron Bird moved to Brooklyn, and here now they have this unique, savvy, contemporary dance-floor compatible sound that floors me as I want to find a piece of rug to cut.
What, I wonder, happened in Brooklyn?
Soapbox time: If anyone still believes (the reason for this Soapbox will become clear shortly) that Gay folks love Disco, Club music and Broadway (and to a slightly lesser extent the European Classical traditions) because of some innate genetic predisposition or cultural imperative -- GET OVER IT. Gay folks generally still find themselves attracted to those styles because the momentum continues almost as strong as ever, following decades when those were the musical styles most open to Gay folks either being Out or being most able to push their digits out of the closets. Rock and Roll, by comparison, has had its Glam Rock, and The Kinks' "Lola" and the androgynous aspects of The Beatles and The 'Stones, plus a few threads of gentler music and artsier types that wove around, but even today few people acknowledge Gay and Bisexual people behind every kind of mainstream rock from Little Richard to the Four Seasons to Judas Priest to Pink. Whether the credited front-of-the-stage, album cover artist or someone essential behind the scenes, Gay people are everywhere as creators of Rock and Roll -- But we're more often pushed into a closet there or self-repressed and recriminated there throughout its history than we are within Club music or Broadway. And that extends to Now.
Which (and here we go) leads to the incessant, continuous, ongoing guessing game of dealing with musicians whose art and image causes one to wonder "So are they Gay?"
As much as anyone, I wish this was a nearly-boring question, on the par of "So are they married?" I don't ask out of prurient interest. (Though I'll admit I'm only human, and musicians who are Gay and who I find are attractive men capture an extra helping of my attention.)
I ask because it should be more common-knowledge information.
(And here we really are getting to the point(s)):
The video for "Contact High" is a treasure trove of gaydar-inducing images.
- The lead character is androgynous. Short sideburns and some facial hair is not much to go on to establish male gender. But that's all we get.
- Sure, it's a men's suit. But a woman with a similar appearance and not-large breasts could fit those clothes.
- The hands have painted fingernails. But by being disembodied, they put extraordinary weight on fingernail polish as a secondary indicator of gender. One could perhaps be being deceived -- playfully, as part of the pleasures of confusion.
- Confusion itself - the sense that something is not quite right - is part of the video's underpinnings. It's a confusion that heightens desire. It leads to giving in to a kind of mysterious pleasure.
If there was no video, the song "Contact High" comes with a vague bit of business possibly not intended as but conceivably a clue too: the several tiny moments when the falsetto male lead vocal sings "boy / you". Set in a song-style both similar to the spirit of AIH's past but with much more clean, "artistic" appeal, one can determine that the vocal is treated at those words to make the word "boy" both a little clipped to cause it to almost sneak by, and to make it pop.
I have never heard anything stating that anyone in Architecture In Helsinki is Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual or Trans or Queer or what - or Hetero for that matter (though I may vaguely recall I may have read about a band member's wife or girlfriend).
But I have to wonder -- aloud, in this instance -- whether Cameron is writing about a same-sex experience, something more or less new to him, in "Contact High".
Or perhaps it's just an interpretation with which I would like to enjoy it. Anyone with insight (or other comments) are welcome to respond.
Still, finally it remains, well, weird and bizarre are the only words for it, that in the vastness of what is broadly termed Indie Rock -- all the hundreds, no, thousands of bands and musicians percolating at levels that tend to barely dent the pop charts if they appear there at all, all these amazing creative folks, outside of a handful who identify as LesBiGayTr (and usually cultivate part of their fanbases among Queer folks), and another handful of Out Queer musicians who have done the right thing and mentioned the truth about their sexuality (whether they market themselves as such or not) -- there are not vast lines of Out Gay musicians stretching as far as the eye or the iPod can see.
Come Out, Come Out, wherever you are. Please.
Meanwhile:
Architecture In Helsinki are about to go on the United States & Canada leg of their tour. Dates below (the second digit : the ".06." : is the month, June) are taken directly from their website.
| 01.06.11 | Henry Fonda Theater • Los Angeles, CA | |||
| 02.06.11 | Great American Music Hall • San Francisco, CA | |||
| 03.06.11 | Slim's • San Francisco, CA | |||
| 04.06.11 | Wonder Ballroom • Portland, OR | |||
| 05.06.11 | Venue • Vancouver, BC | |||
