Final Third: The Rates A. G. Cook hasn’t stopped moving this year. You get that from just reading what he’s been up to: the production work on Charli XCX’s lockdown opus How I’m Feeling Now, collaborations with Sigur Rós’s Jónsi, constructing virtual festivals like Appleville, releasing a seven-part solo debut album called 7G, and following it up just a month later in September with Apple. But his upbeat attitude on talking about the next thing shines through in conversation. “It’s cool to go hard, do it all in one block and be immersed in it,” he says, Zooming from Montana after just finishing work on Appleville. “My head’s definitely in that space.” The growth of the livestream concert since March has been notable, but it makes sense that it would be PC Music pushing the form to its limits. Appleville showcased many stars of Hyperpop, while giving underground talent like Astra King and GRRL the spotlight. But its many shifts in format made it a truly multi-sensory experience. “When you see a good live show, it breaks a ceiling,” Cook says. “You know what the form is, you’ve got these people on stage but then the exciting moment is when they break that set-up and there’s another level on top of that. The answer for me has been more pre-recorded elements and less live simply so you can up the production value and break the rules. I think the technology will probably catch up. Zoom isn’t built for this. This is like the prototype version where we’re waiting for tech companies to do something interesting.” I tell him that one of the most enjoyable things about Appleville was not being able to tell what was pre-recorded and what wasn’t. That guesswork is part of the fun. “It’s very much in the ethos of PC Music stuff,” he says. “It’s something I’m really interested in even with completely static music – the difference between something being raw or slick, amateur or professional, and the notion of ‘live’. It’s a great word, actually – the perfect word for it. Like, LIFE. ‘MTV: Live’.” The traditional response to finding out footage has been pre-recorded, though, is often anger, I say – like you’ve being tricked. Like when autotune first started becoming prominent, although that’s sort of disappearing and people are appreciating it more. “I think it’s people being more exposed to music technology in general,” says Cook. “Even lip-syncing on Tik Tok – at the most amateur level, everyone’s dabbled in these super accessible tools.” Like this, our conversation flits from giddy thought to thought, but it’s showcasing other artists and highlighting PC Music as a communal force that prompts the most excitement from A. G. Cook, as I ask him to tell me about his selects for this month’s Rates. We started with his three new artists.
ASTRA KING A. G.: I found Astra pretty randomly. I think she left a comment on one of my posts. I don’t usually interact with that many comments. It was something technically specific and made me think this person has an insight into something. I looked at her music and it was K-Pop covers, and that’s mostly what’s still on her Spotify. She was really a BTS fan or part of that whole movement. I knew about K-pop superficially and that the fanbase have this certain rep. I really resonated listening to her covers so it opened things up for me. S: And she covered your song ‘Silver’ at Appleville as well. A. G.: Yeah, and that was the first song where I tried to be amusingly open in the lyrics. It’s almost too much. With Astra, it was inspired by PC stuff but not in a way that a lot of stuff has been. Not in the sound design, or the superficial elements of PC. It took the core element about weird songwriting and the sense of someone sitting on their computer. S: Covers have been a big part of what you’ve done recently as well. What draws you to that? A. G.: I think music has become my favourite art form simply because it’s so referential. Whenever you hear music you’re judging it based on everything you’ve heard up to that point. It’s this funny linear abstract thing that only survives because of its roots in other things. In this world copyright is so aggressive that a one second sample can get you into all sorts of trouble, but if you cover an entire song you’re fine. I did that instrumentally with ‘Windowlicker’ because it cracked me up as a sort of exercise. If I like something I want to break it down and see how it was made. S: The history of covers is interesting. In the early days it was mostly record labels trying to rip off their competitors by recording a hit song before it could be distributed. A. G.: Yeah, the legal grey area has always been fascinating to me. That was an era where writing and performing music was separate. You wouldn’t have that many bands who wrote their own stuff; that wasn’t really the point. Those early vinyl pressings, they had to re-perform to get more pressings. And what could be more pop music than rerecording a popular song?
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