PRESS ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Not just noise, not just drums, but something that reaches ecstatic, bombastic heights"
-- Pitchfork
"Propelled by three drummers (four counting John Atkinson, who flails his maracas like a chimp on crack), Aa consistently wows loft parties with a sonic battery of driving beats, ethereal electronics, and samples of sirens and elephant cries. There are lyrics in all that yelling, though we still can't tell what they say."
-- New York Magazine (Top Five)
"Passionately clamorous local experimenters."
-- New York Times
"Aa (BIG A little a) has a very swank one-sided LP out on Narnack. It has a very beautiful way of shifting its center in unexpected ways. The single side of music is a fat tableau of the kindsa sounds that young people should be making and enjoying in bistros from here to Kalamazoo. Here they club out bite-sized hunks of neo-no, new-wave-electro-murk, disco-noise readymades, French duck calls and a buncha other stuff. And it sounds quite pleasing!"
-- Thurston Moore, Arthur Magazine
"Aa takes home the mindfuck award. Like a rabid Animal Collective, their upcoming debut CD/DVD, gAame, is a rambunctious din of electronics, furious beats, and synth all climaxing in primal shouts of ecstasy."
-- Austin Chronicle
"Heavily skewed pop, though the definition of pop must be stretched thin to apply. Art-core krunk?"
-- Flavorpill
"For fans of: Gameboy, Michael J Fox, rubbing your eyes real hard, jazz cigarettes."
-- The Fader Blog
"An art-punk party-starting re-invention of the hippie drum circle."
-- Village Voice
"This neo–no wave septet comprising three drummers intertwines compressed, white-hot shards of gnarly synth clatter and pulsating Gameboy electronics with hyperaggro bursts of drum-circle mania, throaty shouts, and cheerleader whoops that quake, thunder, and echo throughout a fuzz-studded black hole. Ladies and gentlemen, we are drumming in space."
-- San Francisco Bay Guardian
"An urban dance-noise nightmare!"
-- CMJ Monthly
"Utilizing three drum kits and electronically treated moans and chants, Aa weave weird spells and conjure up eerie atmospheres. They are a very hot and wet handful of indescribability indeed."
-- The Stranger(Seattle, WA)
"The band's early spirit has evolved and coalesced: gAame, its second album, reflects the uncommon power of its hypnotic percussive attack. In mostly one- to three-minute bursts of tribal pounding and chanting, adorned with pinwheeling noises, Big A little a establishes itself as a Savage Republic for our times. An accompanying DVD contains extensive live footage and a homemade video for each of the album's 13 songs, many resembling deleted scenes from a Jack Smith film. Hyperactive creativity goes a long way indeed."
-- TimeOut New York
"Call the Brooklyn-based quintet what they call their debut:Big A little a, wherein every member doubles as a drummer and manipulator of electronic components, all shouting or murmering amid their spacey clamor. After a few years of throwing hissy fits in barely legal loft spaces deep in industrial wastelands, playing places like Chicken Hut Loft and Happy Birthday Hideout on bills with TV on the Radio, Mindflayer, and Japanther, Aa grew up enough to get beyond the boroughs. They'll twitch and glitch enough to get the school dance sweaty."
-- Seattle Weekly
"Unpredictable bombast. You'll never see the same Aa show twice!"
-- Portland Mercury
"Art-rock, experimental electronica, whatever you call it the music of Aa is sure to challenge if not delight"
-- AM New York
ETC ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Green Ideas - Like a weird jar of noises put on a windowsill and let to steep in the sun
Raven Sings the Blues [gAame review] - An intense delusion of sticks and fists and flashes of heat that will leave you soaked. Big A little a finally make the record that captures their bumper car aesthetic perfectly.
Only Magazine [gAame review] - It’s the kind of jam you wish you had recorded. Well here it is. Thanks for the memories.
Monkeyclaus [live review] - Their rhythms come in barrages, gaining momentum like a snowball rolling down a mountain. It feels like they are creating their music in real time rather than performing already-composed songs, a rare achievement in contemporary dance music
Hate Something Beautiful [gAame review] - It is art-school avant garde music at some of its best
And More Again - They're like a Class A narcotic without all those nasty side effects.
Sucka Pants - Three and a half percusionists, two vocalists, keyboards, distortion. . . all mixed up like a tornado in your living room
Vitamin C - Il cuore di ciò che fanno sono le percussioni. Tutto il resto è relativo.
Art For Spastics [Pisspounder review] - "Prime Time" opens up the sprawling Aa (Big A little a) side with oozing synth magma that soon yields to a driving, dynamic onslaught of tribal percussion and insistent exhortations. This might be the best and most inspiring should-be pump-up jock-jam since the Hospitals made "Rich People," and both songs sound like they were recorded in an airline hangar
Village Voice Blog [SXSW Preview] - Pretty sure that's pronounced "Big A Little A," if someone inquires during a show, and you're feeling up to shouting over the paralyzing cacophony of this mesmerizing noise-rock outfit. Aa shows are pulverizing and, frankly, kinda hilarious—to the untrained eye (hell, even to the trained eye), it looks like a buncha dudes onstage thwacking drums with reckless and formless abandon, with a bit of screaming and wanton maraca-shaking thrown in for atmosphere. But let it overtake you, and it all gradually coalesces into one solid, exhilarating wall of . . . sound seems to fall a bit short. It's like being hit by a bus, only much, much better.
To Die By Your Side [Best tracks of 2006] - This is the sound of the worst hangover you've ever had. The whoozing whirly intro dissolves into a terrifying, disorienting, loud, noisy racket. Marvellous stuff.
Karate Radio (Denmark) - Fyrsta og samnefnd breiðskífa þeirra gefur sterk fyrirheit um framhaldið.
Audioversity - The glorious thing about Aa is that, like what lies beyond the visible reaches of a spectrum, there's no definition to this band
Blog Do Downz (Portugal) - GAaME pode ser a materialização de todas essas hipóteses e estes Aa mais um daqueles colectivos que fazem pensar que Brooklyn é um lugar cavernoso e jurássico, sem deixar de ser subversivamente cosmopolita
Other Music - GAame is a welcome edition to the New York now-sound running through the underground of its boroughs. A wild mix of percussion, electronics, tape loops, effects, saxophone, synths, whoops and soft screams, it seems to me that the wealth of bands practicing the voice-as-texture formula is spreading. I listen to this CD the same way I listen to others in this experimental/structured improv sub genre of indie rock: those times that I need to scream and can't. Aa give that sense of exhalation much needed around these parts. A good, exciting, and vibrant debut.
20 Jazz Funk GreatsThe echo of their furious drumming resonates in your battered ears, total winner if you ask me
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