While anybody whose ever been to a Todd P show will tell ya that Aa (Big A Little a) has been banging on stuff for years (con gusto as well), this multi-percussionist ensemble is gradually transcending, on one-end, the basement/warehouse variety of East Coast art school pretension, and, on the other, in mass terms, Blue Man Group instrumental gimmickry or bucket-banging street theater – developing both enough distinction and cohesion to warrant inclusion among the ranks the finer exemplars of the weird American underground’s more rhythmic lineage. They’re more virtuosic, yet less song-oriented than the Butthole Surfers’ Rembrandt Pussyhorse-era experimentalism, more concise and organized than Crash Worship’s tribalism, and less epic and harmonic than Gang Gang Dance’s grandiosity. With shorter songs, faster tempos, and more energy than all of the above, the disorienting nature of Aa’s soundbite pacing perhaps warrants a closer comparison to the many Boredom’s percussion-heavy offspring.

Sonically huge, full-bodied, and oddly tidy, Gaame does a fine job of capturing Aa’s life force onto recorded media while illustrating the bands growth in the composition department. The standouts here are the haunting intro “Death Mask” into the – “YYZ” rockin’ the bells of “Best of Seven,” the retardo keyboard pop whippet of “Good Ship,” the screeching and polyrhythms of “Thirteen,” and the feast of textures, “Walk Again.” My only complaint here is that the vocals, which are often inaudible live and aren’t prominently featured in the album, when they do appear up front, are still an unacquired taste that prevents me from getting down with what otherwise would be a couple of my favorite jams.

As with three other local releases that arrived in my PO Box this month, Gaame also includes a DVD. By no means an empty gesture, and including a combination of a music video for every song on the record, plus a handful of live tracks, the DVD offers fans no shortage of material. The videos, all created by different directors, varying in quality and approach, are, for the most part, well-conceived and fun – at points applying the band’s iconic flier/recording illustrations to animations and employing bandmembers as characters in a tongue-in-cheek period piece based on the Cos Cob art colony. The live footage captures the band performing behind a modern dance ensemble, at an art happening, at a rooftop party, outdoors on Roosevelt Island, a giant parking lot party in Queens, a Todd P Bushwick loft space, and, early on, at a Greenpoint dive bar.

Gaame is must for fans, a good bet for adventurers, and a fine argument against naysayers.

Check out a free Aa mp3 and video at NewYorkNightTrain’s Digital Dump

Aa home page
Gigantic Music