- An opus of pop, covers and electronic experimentation from the PC Music head honcho.
- As the founder of PC Music, A. G. Cook is responsible for a world of alternative pop music where everything gets dialed up to 11. But in spite of this, the British artist is a sensitive soul. There were glimmers of it in "Superstar," a Hannah Diamond-assisted track where he debuted his indie-influenced vocal style, and in the soul-baring emo of last year's "Lifeline," whose sincerity would have once seemed like the antithesis of everything PC Music stood for.
Cook is a keen A&R, producer, singer-songwriter, session musician and DJ, as well as Charli XCX's creative director. His fingerprints are all over the modern leftfield pop scene, from his work with Caroline Polachek and Jónsi, to the manic electronics of 100 gecs. 7G, which consists of seven themed discs with seven tracks each, is meant to underline this versatility: drum & bass freakouts, acoustic coffee shop crooner songs, covers of The Smashing Pumpkins and Taylor Swift. It's an audacious effort with all the excess and low-brow taste-baiting of PC Music, but underneath it all runs quiet virtuosity.
7G is an album that throws everything at the wall in hopes that most of it will stick. But it's a pleasant listen, like flipping through a scrapbook. PC Music fans will recognize many of these tracks from mixes, teases and live sets over the past few years. Each disc is defined by a certain instrument, including drums and guitar and more specific sounds like a sawtooth oscillator, Nord keyboards or extreme vocals. Listening to the supersaw disc feels like seeing PC Music through an X-ray machine, and some of these songs, like "Illuminated Biker Gang," rank up there with Cook's best material. The Nord disc features the glassy textures of '90s adult contemporary, including a major highlight in the short but beautiful "Crimson."
If you like Cook's singer-songwriter side, there's plenty to dig into, including the slide guitar lullaby "Drink Blood," the revealing live version of "Superstar" or the Elliott Smith-style "Being Harsh," with gorgeous guitar playing. Cook is a master of melody, capable of hooks that can hit you over the head as much as they can beckon you into a more intimate, introspective space.
If you're not into that side of Cook, the drums disc is up there with his most instantly gratifying work, while the piano and spoken word discs stretch the limits of what those terms can mean. It's the extreme vocals disc that highlights another of A. G. Cook's distinctive talents: his ability to warp the human voice in ways that feel futuristic and alien, even in the hyperpop age. This disc features several of 7G's extremely uneven covers, from the blasé ("Today" by Smashing Pumpkins) to the flat-out absurd, like when he tackles Sia's anthem "Chandelier." On "Chandelier," he's joined by Caroline Polachek, an artist who uses her own operatic voice to mimic the glitchy glint of autotune. It's a duet between one of pop music's most capable singers and one of its most canny manipulators, and it'll either send you running out of the room or melting in admiration. The covers are the stickiest aspect of 7G. Most of them are one-note, more of an "influences" playlist than a collection of worthy interpretations. They weigh down the already heavy album with dead weight, but the hit rate of 7G is remarkably high anyways, a testament to Cook's vision.
7G is a warts-and-all look at one of modern pop music's most intriguing behind-the-scenes figures. It hides nothing, which is radical coming from the man who once antagonized the electronic music world with a style that made irony and sincerity indistinguishable from each other. This album isn't perfect but 7G is a new start, the sound of the dust settling around PC Music and the revealing of a strong musical talent. It feels absurdist in a whole new way: three hours of unguarded expression from modern pop music's unlikely maestro.
Tracklist01. A-Z
02. Acid Angel
03. H2O
04. Drum Solo
05. Nu Crush
06. Gemstone Break
07. Silver
08. Gold Leaf
09. Being Harsh
10. Undying
11. Drink Blood
12. Lil Song
13. Beetlebum
14. Superstar (Live At Secret Sky)
15. Mad Max
16. Illuminated Biker Gang
17. Soft Landing
18. Overheim
19. DJ Every Night
20. Car Keys
21. Dust
22. Oracle
23. Note Velocity
24. Windows
25. Feeling
26. Waldhammer
27. Polyphloisboisterous
28. Anything Could Happen
29. Behind Glass
30. Oohu
31. The Best Day
32. Triptych Demon
33. Official
34. Crimson
35. Life Speed
36. Could It Be
37. The End Has No End
38. No Yeah
39. Green Beauty
40. Unreal
41. 2021
42. Hold On
43. Today
44. Chandelier
45. Idyll
46. Show Me What (with Cecile Believe)
47. Somers Tape
48. Crimson And Clover
49. Alright
50. 7G (7 Minute Mix)