A. G. Cook

It was at Goldsmiths he reconnected with Danny L Harle, with whom he had gone to school as a teen.[2] The two bonded over their shared musical tastes and interest in comedy duo Tim & Eric. This grew into a musical project called Dux Content.[7] Since they did not have a vocalist, Dux Content focused on musical experiments like compound metres and changes in tempo.[7] One of their earlier works was a collection of compositions for the Disklavier, released with Spencer Noble and Tim Phillips under the name "Dux Consort".[1]

Cook has worked on graphics for PC Music acts including easyFun and Maxo.[1]

Cook created Gamsonite, a "pseudo-label" collecting his early collaborations.[6] Dux Content released its songs with strange renderings of digital avatars for promotional artwork.[1] They contributed to the score for Alicia Norman's animated film Heart of Death and began considering a children's television show titled Dux Content's Jungle Jam. Cook and Harle explored how to build rhythms out of a vocalist's natural singing tempo and released the results as "Dux Kidz". The project was noticed by producer Sophie, who later worked with PC Music's acts.[7] Cook began working on building flashy websites with Hannah Diamond and decided to focus on using websites to promote music.[6]

In August 2013, Cook founded PC Music as a way of embracing an A&R role, with the aim of "recording people who don't normally make music and treating them as if they're a major label artist."[2]In January 2014, Cook released "Keri Baby" as his first solo single, with vocals by Diamond.[8] The track uses pop clichés and glitchy vocals to depict Diamond as a digital entity on a screen.[8][9] His follow-up single "Beautiful" was released in June. "Beautiful" is a pastiche of Eurodance, featuring high, pitch-shifted vocals and donk sounds.[10][11] Fact magazine called it PC Music's "de-facto anthem", and the song received a remix from Scottish producer Rustie.[12]

Sophie (left) and Cook (right) produced QT's single "Hey QT"

Cook worked with Sophie to produce a song for QT, a pop singer portrayed by American performance artist Hayden Dunham.[13] She found Cook through his work online and wanted to use a song to market a QT energy drink.[14] Their resulting collaboration "Hey QT" was released in August 2014 on XL Recordings.[15]

On 22 December 2014, A. G. Cook released "What I Mean" from his "Personal Computer Music" mix as a single. The single was made available as a free download via radio presenter Annie Mac's "Free Music Monday" SoundCloud channel.[16] Opening with muffled dialogue, the song incorporates robotic vocals and a sample of R&B artist Chuckii Booker.[17] Its organ-based arrangement was a more soulful take on Cook's usual style of dance-pop.[17][18] After discussing a collaboration on a Charli XCX album,[19] Cook contributed an official remix of her single "Doing It" featuring Rita Ora.[20]

Cook's work received recognition on year-end lists for 2014. "Keri Baby" was listed at number 5 of Dummy magazine's "20 Best Tracks of 2014",[21] and Buzzfeed's "13 Obscure Tracks of 2014",[22] number 1 on Gorilla vs. Bear's, "Favourite Tracks of 2014",[23] number 2 on Dazed & Confused's "Top 20 Tracks of 2014".[9] Pitchfork Media ranked "Beautiful" number 30 on its list of "The 100 Best Tracks of 2014".[10]

March 2015 saw Cook's PC Music head to the USA to showcase all 11 of his label's talent at the Empire Garage in Austin, Texas as part of SXSW. The showcase received positive reviews, with The Guardian saying "AG Cook's entire thundering set [shows] this is a label refusing to be confined by definitions of genre or good taste."[24] On 8 May 2015, Cook performed as part of a PC Music show at BRIC House in Brooklyn, New York as part of the Red Bull Music Academy Festival. The show was billed as the premiere of Pop Cube, "a multimedia reality network".[25]

"Superstar," Cook's fifth single, was released via PC Music on 13 July 2016.[26] On the day of its release, Cook revealed via Twitter that "Superstar" had been in the works for over two years prior, originally beginning as a "topline pitch" for electro house DJ Zedd.[27]

In April 2016, experimental music producer Oneohtrix Point Never posted a cryptic video to his Instagram that appeared to show Cook working on a remix of "Sticky Drama," a single from his 2015 album Garden of Delete.[28] The remix was later surprise-released on 16 December 2016.[29][30]

In March 2017, Charli XCX's mixtape Number 1 Angel was released, prominently featuring production by Cook and others, including PC Music artists and affiliates SOPHIE, Danny L Harle, Life Sim, and EASYFUN, who created the project EasyFX with Cook.[31][32] This was followed by the mixtape Pop 2, also featuring production by Cook and others. Pitchfork Media gave Pop 2 a rating of 8.4 out of 10, calling it "a vision of what pop music could be" and "the best full-length work of both Charli and PC Music’s respective careers".[33]

In November 2018, A. G. Cook contributed to Tommy Cash's second studio album ¥€$. Cook is credited as the producer on 5 tracks on the record, including lead single "X-RAY" which he co-produced with Danny L Harle.

Cook was announced as the co-executive producer for Charli XCX's third studio album Charli, which was released on the 13th of September 2019. Cook has produced six of the album's seven singles, including Gone, the third single from the album, which features Christine and the Queens. The song was awarded "Best New Track" by Pitchfork [34] and best song of the week by Stereogum. [35]

On April 6th 2020, Cook was announced as Co-Executive Producer for Charli XCX's How I'm Feeling Now along with BJ Burton for her quarantine album which was to be written in an open-source style, sharing the production process online and utilising fan input/content.[36] On April 23rd 2020 Jónsi released his first solo music in a decade, the A. G. Cook produced Exhale.[37]