My Mad Music Corner: AA= #1

I found a lot on Yahoo Auctions of AA='s first three albums, as well as the CD single for The Klock, and I jumped on it like a barbarian. For those who don't know, AA= is the solo project of Takeshi Ueda, who was the bassist/main songwriter for The Mad Capsule Markets, which he formed after Mad disbanded. (Kyono, the vocalist of Mad, also started his own solo project called Wagdug Futuristic Unity, but I haven't gotten any of the Wagdug albums just yet.)

AA= expands on the digital hardcore sound that Mad was doing by the time of their final album, CiSTm K0nFLiqT..., but from Takeshi's perspective. (Wagdug's first full album Hakai is a similar expansion from Kyono's, which makes the albums ripe for direct comparison.) The lines are blurred even further between punk rock and electronica, and vocals from both Takeshi and main vocalist Takayoshi Shirakawa are coated with a smattering of Auto-Tune to give it a distinctly robotic flavor. This album is utterly fantastic for fans of Mad to have something new to latch onto, as are the AA= albums that follow.

NOTE: Despite the DVD being advertised as region-free, it is actually locked to Region 2.

This digipak album is released through Commons Music Group, designed to accommodate Takeshi's environmentalism through the AA= project (the liner notes even have a QC code to support the World Wildlife Foundation); the CD and DVD are held in soft cardboard spindle-less disc trays to crack down on the use of plastic.

However, I can't say I like this particular design (I really don't like any disc trays that don't have spindles, one of my few exceptions being the one designed for the DVD of Wall-E) because of one major issue I have with it: there's a tab pushing the edge of the disc against the tray, that you have to pull up to get the disc out. It's not an absolute chore to get them out, like the deluxe edition for The Amazing Spider-Man 2's soundtrack's "inserts" are, but it does make you fear that the disc is scratching. #2 has the same kind of disc tray, and AA= did not go back to regular jewel cases until #3 was released through Speedstar instead.