POPSCREEN: Architecture in Helsinki

As music videos exhaust the old clichés—half-naked women, silhouetted drummers, and the ever-popular head banging—real creativity is becoming the most desired product in the industry, and Architecture in Helsinki has it in spades. Proving this fact in each music video they create, the band has experimented with everything from video game cartoons to still photographs collaged into an animation to choreographed trampoline jumping. However, in their video for “Like it Or Not,” the group has reached a new level of ballsiness—cross-stitched animation.

But this is not your average rocking-chair grandma knitting. Architecture in Helsinki is here to prove that they can make any nerdy pastime look downright cool. With a confident indie pop sound in which The Pixies meet OK Go, they can pretty much pull off whatever they want. And what they seem to want now is to chronicle the odyssey of two coconuts through an embroidered world.

But don’t be dissuaded by this cross-stitching concept. The music video still comes complete with lions, flamingos, hot-air balloons, and hula-hooping monkeys. Even if they’re only composed of yarn, they don’t lack in entertainment value. In fact, for the full three minutes of “Like it Or Not,” you’ll see more of the world than what’s usually offered on a dance floor or concert stage.

But what music video would be satisfactory without a clip of the band doing what they do best? Architecture in Helsinki has taken care of this, too, with a darned scene of the band rocking out—cross-stitch style. This budding band obviously refuses to succumb to overused music video motifs, but instead prefers to grow a fan base attracted to the more imaginative and unorthodox.

—Noël D. Barlow