Aa - GAame

Aa (BIG A Little A)
GAame
(04.2007, Gigantic)
9.5/10

Like an invading tribe of electronically advanced, alien gorillas, Aa (BIG A Little A) seamlessly combine the prehistoric and the futuristic in their tenacious attack. And, building on the previous comparison, they are both violently absurd and gloriously entertaining in their musical assault. The forefront of Aa's power is their passionate polyrhythms. Imagine the alien gorillas again in a blazed drum circle, chanting and screaming as they pound away, and you will begin to capture the essence of the experience of GAame. And now the futurism – gorillas seem to be an animal a little too dense to be managing some of the elaborate distortions and freakishly wonderful melodies that come into play on top of GAame's drum-beat cacophony, so you will have to lend your mind's eye to some other, more mischievous, smaller primate to take the task of these embellishments. Before you know it you'll have some mashup of The Jungle Book, Congo and Total Recall playing in your head to this tightly wound, musical sprawl. The album is short; just over thirty minutes, so as not to evoke madness. It is a perfect length really, and an almost perfect CD. It feels like a lighter companion piece to Raccoo-oo-oon's Behold Secret Kingdom or a distant cousin to Animal Collective's Here Comes the Indian, but trumps both on accessibility. Gloriously executed, Aa's GAame is here with it’s alien apes to destroy your senses and jump you into its gang of quasi-dance destructionism? Trust me, its good.

-Mr. Thistle

Aa (BIG A Little A) - Thirteen