boston hassle - 2.13.2012

lucid culture - 12.13.2010
// lucid culture

Do you like rare and obscure 1980s Belgian post punk to one up your friends when it's your turn to play music in a social situation for whatever reason? If so, this record is fucking perfect for you. AA was a band started in late 1980 by a few high school drop outs in middle of nowhere Belgium. They recorded this EP limited to 900 copies and were never heard of again until last year when it was reissued and limited to 500 copies. Sounds like the Fall meets the coolest Factory records band you've never heard.
// 777


origami vinyl's top ten best-sellers: 9.19.09 - 10.2.09

01. Thom Yorke - "FeelingPulledApartByHorses" 12-inch (T & D)
02. Fool's Gold - Fool's Gold (IAMSOUND)
03. Girls - Album (True Panther Sounds)
04. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - "Can't Hear My Eyes" 7-inch (Mexican Summer)
05. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - "Higher Than the Stars" 12-inch (Slumberland)
06. Big Star - "Feel" 7-inch (Rhino)
07. Girls - "Lust for Life" 7-inch (True Panther Sounds)
08. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love (4AD) 
09. The XX - XX (Young Turks)
10. AA - "Essential Entertainment" 7-inch (Softspot)
// la weekly


hobofm 2009


Belgium's AA formed in 1980 with the express purpose of undermining the music circus and doing things their own way. They pressed their debut ep "Essential Entertainment" themselves and traveled Europe by train, slanging records out of cardboard boxes. They were also known for hijacking venues: storming the stage after a band played, 'borrowing' their instruments, and exploding through a short set. Just as they started to get noticed for their easy post-punk and angular style they disbanded. They realized that they were on the verge of becoming a 'real band'. I can't think of a more appropriate band for the top of your alphabetical itunes library.

'Essential Entertainment' has been reissued by Brooklyn's Softspot Records. It's only four tracks long, and it represents nearly all of AA's work. "Suicide Fever" is the standout track. It's striking guitar sound, languid beat, and driving bass make just the right framework for the near-monotonous vocals. More here.

Go buy your copy of the 7" vinyl at Softspot or Sacred Bones records if it's still available. It's only about 7 bucks.
// hobofm


dusted magazine | listed 9.24.09

4. AA - “Suicide Fever” (Softspot) Favorite reissue of the year. Really beautiful Factory feeling guitar with Fall-like repetition, minimal spoken chants, ala Belgium, and perfect for repeat listens and cigarettes on the porch. 
// dusted magazine


7 inches every day 6.26.09

AA is another romantic story of a band who went into the studio in the early 80's and recorded a perfect little post punk EP in an edition of something like 500. It got into enough hands of people who never forgot them...even making it to the US, and into the “International Discography Of The New Wave"....anyway the whole huge story is on AA's myspace.

It's one of those bands like Beyond the Implode...they were just making what they wanted for no one...it just happened to age really well. I have to say AA is exactly what you wanted the early 80's to sound like. Kind of dark, minimal, not relying on the synth too much, still rock and guitar based. The guitar tones are wavering... distorted...like this era Cure. I'm amazed to think the only things they had were chains of pedals to come up with this...but to use it like Gang of Four, or the Wire is of course as we all know now...is timeless. This easily slides in alongside that era.
It's everything that makes the new wave of this era sound so interesting to me. I'm pretty ignorant of it, so when a reissue like this comes around and the few tracks on the myspace are this interesting. There have to be other overlooked documents like this... then I'm in.
I don't think punk, for me anyway, really has the same relevance...this new wave still sounds contemporary. I think the good and bad thing about punk rock, is how tied it was to it's own politics. You had to live punk, it was a part of your daily life...there was nothing casual about it. You knew who else liked it immediately...and I'm even talking about the various aftershocks of punk...let's face it I don't even know what it was like to actually be there, but I think that msic is more about the scene and attitude then the songs...maybe that's obvious to everyone, but it's what always holds it back for me.

'Suicide Fever' is a great great song, no one has sounded this depressed, he's got a talking low almost Peter Murphy, Ian Curtis voice, that of course makes every one of these songs. 

This is available from the usual mailorder distro's, Fusetron, Aquarius, etc and from Softspots myspace. 
// 7 inches every day

xlr8r | themselves artist guest review 6.23.09

A friend passed me this reissue, and although this is not the color of music I usually bump, it sounds fresh. At first I thought it was a little derivative; however, considering that this record was cut in ’81, I am sure it’s a case of the creative chicken before the egg—these guys are a good egg preceding all the post-post-punk chickens I have since heard.
// xlr8r


aquarius records | new arrivals list 6.6.09

Debut release from this New York label and it's a doozy. A long lost post punk gem from Belgium. The band is called AA, and this, their first and only record, was originally released in 1981 and even then was limited to 900 copies. The second we heard "Suicide Fever" we knew we had to get this. More on that track in a second. 

Taking cues from their contemporaries, Joy Division, the Fall, Wire, and of course their labelmates Cultural Amnesia (whose reissue we reviewed her recently), the sound is total stripped down, minimal raw new wave post puck rock, jagged chiming guitars, simple motorik drumming, thick buzzing bloopy basslines, and weary heavily accented sung/spoken vocals. Simple effects warp the sound, delay, flange, reverb, echo, each track is short and sharp, one part, MAYBE two, the melodies super catchy, the songs totally mesmerizing, groovy and coldly Teutonic, but always with some strange but of melodic warmth just below the surface. 

"Suicide Fever" is the jam though, sounding a little like a less sludgey, more new wave Brainbombs! Total minimal punk pop genius, with a super haunting and hooky main melody and guitar line, those vocals way up in the mix, the lyrics nihilistic and grim, delivered so jadedly, while the bass and drums are locked solid, and the guitars ring out, soaring and chiming, so great. Most definitely the 7" reissue of the year! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. 
// aquarius records

damn ugly photography | song of the day 5.12.09

Today I’m posting a new song…from 1981! Back in that long-ago time there was once a Belgian quartet going by the name AA (“Anarchists Anonymous”) that played only five shows, put their music to tape only twice (the first time being their first rehearsal) and then like so many young bands, blew up, never to be heard from again. Well…not exactly…..somebody at the Brooklyn indie label Softspot Music stumbled across the recordings from that rehearsal and a second, 4-hour session, and decided to reissue their one and only record. Originally pressed as a copy 900 seven-inch on “Sexy Robot Records” (that’s what the band called their made-up label), the resulting record had all the appeal of kids just learning the music as they were going along and their stripped-down, strangely hypnotic sound borrows from other ‘No Wave’ bands of the time like Joy Division, The Bush Tetras, DNA and Television. So even though they really didn’t know where a tune should start or stop and with lyrics cobbled together from bits and pieces written by everyone in the group, the surprising thing was the EP was getting good reviews and airplay on pirate radio stations…they were in danger of becoming a “real” band…so they did the obvious thing and packed it in! But almost three decades later, like all the kids, they’ve got a MySpace Page where you can hear more from the Essential Entertainment EP…
// Damn Ugly Photography

rcrd lbl | suicide fever 5.6.09

The short-lived Belgian band AA played only five shows, recorded twice–once as their first rehearsal, once in a proper studio for only four hours–and would probably have been forgotten had the upstart Brooklyn label Softspot Music not decided to reissue their one and only record. The Essential Entertainment EP initially existed in 1981 as 900 seven-inches on "Sexy Robot Records," or more truthfully, the then-super-young band's made-up label. Its four songs were among the five or so the band wrote, including "Suicide Fever," the languishing piece of post-punk you can download below. A more detailed–and humorous!–bio is available at their artist page, just don't sleep on this one. A definite gem.
// rcrd lbl

the end of irony 4.24.09

Most indie rockers are probably familiar with Aa (aka Big A Little a), a current Brooklyn based band; far fewer are familiar with the similarly named band AA. The post-punk band was birthed in Belgium nearly thirty years ago and had only one release, an EP entitledEssential Entertainment. Only 900 copies were made. These factors have contributed to this release being essentially unknown, so why bring it up now?

Softspot Music will be re-releasing AA's Essential Entertainment in a limited edition 7" vinyl of the EP soon. More details are sure to follow, but the idea of reviving an unknown act in this way seems like an interesting experiment. It often feels like re-releases are about cashing in (such as Capitol re-releasing all that Radiohead material). Softspot is putting AA's material out there for the right reasons: love of the music and the feeling that it needs to be heard.
// the end of irony