Commissioning remixes of your latest album is a big risk, and in some cases is rightly viewed as a rather lazy sales generator. Happily such accusations fall wide of the mark when considering Australian pop octet Architecture in Helsinki. Not for them the type of remix album that sees the same names contributing run of the mill takes on established tunes. This is by complete contrast a vibrant group of interpretations that should introduce a few new names, artists that clearly have an affinity with the original material.  Full text...

Perhaps the biggest testament to the success of the album is Isan's remix of the delicate instrumental "Rendezvous: Portero Hill." What I would almost immediately dismiss as wankery -- taking a two minute song and making it six-plus, with a title like "Portero Hill (Three Point Four Five Five Mix)" -- is actually a thoughtful and creative expansion of the little flute that marks the original. It serves as a reminder that Architecture in Helsinki's self-proclaimed death has given this artists room to move and explore, creating an album that is so far from the original that it remains true to its spirit.   Full text...

Pleasingly more involving than the majority of remix albums designed to fill between-album gaps, this will more than do until album number three.  Full text...

Architecture in Helsinki's fun-house arrangements are neutralized by the restrictive pace of the click track, which neatly tailors all the ragged edges that make them so infectious on their own. When the band's vocals aren't minced into near-vapor (as on DAT Politics' "Frenchy I'm Faking") or routed through a Speak & Spell (Franc Tetas' "Wishbone"), they're left uncomfortably bare, a throat-straining enthusiasm that sounds out of place amidst the precision and sheen. Outright replacing the vocals doesn't work either, as Mocky's ridiculous rap-along version of "Need to Shout" proves in horrifying fashion (actual couplet "I need to shout, what's it all about.").  Full text...