Too often indie-rock remix albums collections take on a tone of self-indulgence, coming off like a boast about the group's open-minded listening habits, a way of announcing that they're down with the new-fangled electronic music, or at least friends with such people. At best, a remix record can bring out hidden details and motivations in the source material, like Death from Above 1979 being forcibly dragged out of the dance-music closet with their Romance Bloody Romance. At worst, these albums can make the remixers appear to be a clutch of shady plastic surgeons, talking the remixee into unnecessary procedures that do nothing but strip them of their unique features.
Architecture in Helsinki are not novices to the musical cosmetic surgery world, having included at least one remix on each of their singles/EPs to date, surprisingly few of which are rehashed for We Died, They Remixed. Yet the results aren't much improved by their experience going under the knife, recruiting an uneven roster of nip/tuckers who rarely go beyond the typical by-the-numbers computerization of selections from 2005's In Case We Die. To mix medical metaphors, most of these clinicians can't resist the urge to force-feed the normally spastic AiH a handful of Ritalin, icing down the tempo and Mr. Toad turns and leaving a slack-jawed, zoned-out zombie.
But let's start with the exceptions. Discopunkers 33Hz hang the accoutrements of disco-- robot voices, some whispered call-and-response, rubber-band bass, choked guitars-- on the giddy "It's 5!" and actually pull off the revamp, the new environment transforming the group's collective yelp into an almost-believable cool detachment. There's also a bit of an indie-dance rumble between Safety Scissors and Hot Chip over who can do a better job with "Do the Whirlwind", a fight won by the minimal squiggles and micro-percussion deployed by Safety Scissors... plus, Hot Chip was disqualified due to bongo usage.
Unfortunately, on the other 14 remixes, 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.").
Missing the point even further are the trio of downbeat atmospheric makeovers tucked into the end of the disc, by Qua, Mountains in the Sky, and Isan. Qua's vaguely middle-eastern "Maybe You Can Own Me" turns the epic twee-duet original into an Enigma outtake, while Mountains in the Sky reorganizes the components of In Case We Die's all-stops finale "What's In Store?" into a lump of dull looping-program Muzak, apparently not trusting the original's peaks and valleys. Morr Musicians Isan at least give themselves a challenge with the throwaway organ transition "Rendezvous: Portrero Hill", but the end product never gets beyond sounding like a watered-down Múm.
The problem with most of these figurative nose jobs is a misunderstanding of Architecture in Helsinki's original appeal. They're a band whose charm is built on their exuberance, their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink instrumentation, their willingness to wear hearts on sleeves to occasionally showtune proportions. Hearing one's art reinterpreted through the aesthetic of a colleague is presumably thrilling to a musician-- they've dwelled over the original so long through the recording and gigging process that a new context is welcome fresh air. But for fans hearing a gaggle of artists confronting the original songs only tangentially, or merely stripping them for parts and recycling them through their own uncompromised aesthetic is something of a bait and switch, a remix album as compilation rather than expansion.