Album Review: Aa
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Finally, two years after his breakthrough success ‘Harlem Shake’, comes Baauer’s debut album Aa. The album doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, but nevertheless it contains some good tunes.
Aa opens with ‘Church’, an ambient track teasing that Baauer’s music has changed direction. However ‘GoGo!’ quickly discards this notion, as it showcases what Baauer does best: predictable music that hits hard. ‘GoGo!’s heavy drop hits like a truck, but like many dubstep songs, it quickly becomes repetitive. The album lurches on into ‘Body’: a fusion of funk and deep house that is a somewhat refreshing listen. ‘Pinku’ follows, focusing more on instrumentation, before the grimey bassline of ‘Sow’.
It’s not until Aa’s midpoint that Baauer begins to include his collaborators. ‘Day Ones’ features Novelist and Leikeli47 spitting bars over a punching horn rhythm. ‘Temple’ features China-inspired instrumentation and verses from M.I.A and G-DRAGON, with Baauer stripping back the beat to make room for the lyric-focused vocals. ‘Kung-Fu’ sounds like a typical Future song, and Future and Pusha T rap (or in Future’s case, make noise) over a beat that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on What A Time To Be Alive.
Baauer ends the album with the one-minute long title track ‘Aa’. ‘Aa’ jumps quickly jumps between genres, once more showcasing Baauer’s versatility and talent: it’s just a shame he didn’t do this on his album itself’.