A. G. Cook - Apple

September 18, 2020 - PC Music

What the hell is this, I wondered, having listened to A. G. Cook never and wondering what an album titled Apple might be getting after. We’re dealing with a heartfelt man who’s helped as a producer to define the sounds of artists like Charlie XCX and Heather Diamond, who’s earnestness does nothing to dampen the flames of camp A. G. Cook stokes in Apple.

The first track opens up deceptively vanilla, but buckle up, or if you’re a little reckless, maybe don’t. Within a minute a sundry of textures and channels open up. The vocals remain true pop as its title ‘Oh Yeah,’ precipitates. But before long a singer-songwriter acoustic guitar breakup song is inundated with breathy choirs and meandering synths and highly compressed drums. Buckle up a second time, you’re going to want a fresh hot-off-the-assembly-line seatbelt. With ‘Xxoplex,’ we’re getting a little more of the truth. Cook is letting us into his home. MTV’s Cribs is starting, and if you saw garden gnomes on Cook’s lawn, you’re reappraising them against the whips, chains, and altars to unheard-of deities in the foyer and living room. It smells amazing, and he won’t tell you why. Best not to press the issue.

‘Xxoplex,’ screeches. It’s a banshee’s chorus to start, and suddenly we’re very far away from the balmy shores of ‘Oh Yeah.’ It's a revamped rave in the early 90’s as my mother would tell me if she weren’t from a small southern town where modesty is paramount. But if a minute of high-energy swelling synths in offbeats was not enough time to get your sea-rave-legs, you’re going to throw up. And it’s going to taste better than it did going down. A texturally unblemished bump-baby of drum ‘n bass and dubstep is born. Or a maelstrom approaches. Pick your whatever.

In the year 2020 we no longer ask, “Who does this?” when something surprising in art and entertainment comes along. If you’re still doing that, snap out of it. The answer is always right in front, even though there’s often an enormous anonymous team of people behind the answer. ‘Beautiful Superstar’ comes along next and says what I’m thinking. “I don’t wanna use the same old words.” But what choice do I have? I can only whip out so many coinages like “bump-baby,” which has admittedly limited efficacy. The track decelerates from ‘Xxoplex.’ Subtle elements of goth, industrial, and screamo make their way into the third track.

The first three tracks are just to let the people know what they’re in for. This album zigs, and when you think it’s going to zag, it zigs again and keeps zigging until you’ve given up on a zag, and when you think that a zag is going to come along because you gave up on the zag, you’re wrong it’s going to zig until you’ve forgotten that zagging was an option, and that’s when. Without mentioning any names, this album does what the past two years in estuaries of electronic music have been trying to do. Polished and sprawling, Apple suggests A. G. Cook’s music may become as proprietary as the brand with which it shares its namesake. And it’d be a shame to not give a little nod to the commercially subversive nature of releasing an album called Apple under the label PC Music.⛰️