Philco Fiction: "Help!"

The most unfortunate thing about Philco Fiction’s “Help!” is evident before hearing it even once: at best, the track is destined to be the second-best song with its title, all the way down to that emphatic punctuation. But this is neither a Beatles cover nor a tribute of any kind; even its contextual “help” is different. Where the Beatles wanted help finding love quickly, Philco Fiction seeks help for finding it too quickly—and its musical plea is as sonically immediate as it is thematically mysterious.

So too, in fact, is the group itself. Comprised of singer Turid Solberg and instrumentalists Bjarne Gustaven and Andreas Knudsrød—all from Norway with just three American appearances under their belt—Philco Fiction is willfully elusive. There might be more to say of the trio’s background were its website not written in Norwegian, or more to derive from its debut—last year’s Give Us to the Lions—were it actually widely available. As is, all there is to go on are a few promo shots in which the bandmates cover their faces with stockings, a Myspace profile where the band’s sound is categorized quite mirthfully as Chinese/Italian pop, and “Help!”, the glimmering lead single off its upcoming sophomore effort. So not only is “Help!” the band’s best foot forward, as of now it’s the only foot in sight.

Perhaps true to expectation, the song’s shadowy, jittery energy sidesteps genre placement in an intriguing way: even as a straightforwardly pop-oriented song, “Help!” encapsulates the percussive flourishes of modern hip-hop, the dueling synthesizers of throwback electronica, and the dampened backing vocals of indie rock in less than four minutes. It starts tribally with the type of horse-trotting beat that disappears from the pop landscape in the lulls between Timbaland productions, and quickly sets up an aesthetic in which two synths—one low and rattling, one high and riffing—underscore Solberg’s dominant vocals. She sings both watery background harmonies and a paper-thin lead, often doubling herself to fortify the performance. Her narrative, which begins in a spirit of conquest, eventually turns to coquettish—if sometimes indecipherable —submission. “I’m falling through a house / I’m falling through a war / I’m heavy like a cloud / Will I ever reach your floor?” goes one verse, proving Solberg either a devotee of the David Byrne school of metaphysical lyricism or a writer working outside her first language. Upon hearing her sing “bad boy”—which the Norwegian accent renders adorably as “bird boy”—it’s clearly and endearingly the latter.

But no matter: the crux of Solberg’s delivery is in her rhythmic phrasing and her grunt-like vocal acrobatics. The arrangement of the song is addictively adventurous, stopping and starting casually (but not carelessly) and working into a head-spinning frenzy about midway through, when the lower synthesizer falls slightly behind tempo and the higher one dazzles ever upward. Somewhat dishearteningly, the track fails to reach any real resolution by the time it abruptly ends—but a band this clever knows that a song too simple might keep an audience from wanting to hear more.