A. G. Cook

Alexander Guy Cook (born 23 August 1990) is an English music producer and the head of the UK record label PC Music.

Since founding PC Music in August 2013, Cook's label has represented over 20 artists releasing music within a similar style, in which tropes from mainstream 1990s and 2000s pop music are amplified.

This style of exaggerated pop tropes grew to serve as the foundation of the genre hyperpop, which Cook is credited for developing and popularising.

Alexander Guy Cook is the son of English architect Sir Peter Cook and Israeli architect Yael Reisner.

He attended Goldsmiths, University of London, where he studied music.

It was at Goldsmiths he reconnected with Danny L Harle, with whom he had gone to school as a teen.

The two bonded over their shared musical tastes and interest in comedy duo Tim & Eric.

This grew into a musical project called Dux Content.

Since they did not have a vocalist, Dux Content focused on musical experiments like compound metres and changes in tempo.

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".

Cook created Gamsonite, a "pseudo-label" collecting his early collaborations.

Dux Content released its songs with strange renderings of digital avatars for promotional artwork.

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.

Cook began working on building flashy websites with Hannah Diamond and decided to focus on using websites to promote music.

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."

Cook released his first solo singles in 2014.

He has also collaborated with PC Music artists such as Hannah Diamond, GFOTY, EASYFUN, Danny L Harle and Felicita.

He formed the one-off project QT with musician Sophie and performance artist Hayden Dunham, producing the 2014 single "Hey QT".

Cook came into the public eye as Charli XCX's creative director and has executively produced her projects: Number 1 Angel, Pop 2, Charli and How I'm Feeling Now.

In January 2014, Cook released "Keri Baby" as his first solo single, with vocals by Diamond.

The track uses pop clichés and glitchy vocals to depict Diamond as a digital entity on a screen.

His follow-up single "Beautiful" was released in June.

"Beautiful" is a pastiche of Eurodance, featuring high, pitch-shifted vocals and donk sounds.

Fact magazine called it PC Music's "de-facto anthem", and the song received a remix from Scottish producer Rustie.

Cook worked with Sophie to produce a song for QT, a pop singer portrayed by American performance artist Hayden Dunham.

She found Cook through his work online and wanted to use a song to market a QT energy drink.

Their resulting collaboration "Hey QT" was released in August 2014 on XL Recordings.

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.

Opening with muffled dialogue, the song incorporates robotic vocals and a sample of R&B artist Chuckii Booker.

Its organ-based arrangement was a more soulful take on Cook's usual style of dance-pop.

After discussing a collaboration on a Charli XCX album, Cook contributed an official remix of her single "Doing It" featuring Rita Ora.

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", and BuzzFeed's "13 Obscure Tracks of 2014", number 1 on Gorilla vs. Bear's, "Favourite Tracks of 2014", number 2 on Dazed & Confused's "Top 20 Tracks of 2014".

Pitchfork Media ranked "Beautiful" number 30 on its list of "The 100 Best Tracks of 2014".

Cook was named #12 in the Dazed 100 for "redefining style and youth culture in 2015 and beyond".

Cook released his two debut albums, 7G and Apple, and received the Variety Hitmakers Innovator of The Year Award in 2020.

In 2022, he co-produced the song "All Up in Your Mind" from Beyoncé's album Renaissance, which earned him a nomination for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.