Full Transcript:

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John Kennedy: Hello and welcome to Tape Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music.

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John Kennedy: Every episode, we’ll be reuniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio.

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John Kennedy: So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath.

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John Kennedy: Hello, I’m John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes is A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook to talk about how he wrote, recorded, and produced the album Britpop.

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John Kennedy: Alex Cook, better known as A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook, is an artist and producer from London.

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John Kennedy: After studying music at Goldsmiths University and releasing tracks with collaborator Danny L Harle, Alex founded PC Music, a record label and art collective curating a new kind of hyperpop.

00:00:54.462 –> 00:01:04.282
John Kennedy: Since its foundation, the label has released music from artists including Hannah Diamond and Easy Fun and been a huge influence on both mainstream creators and bedroom producers.

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John Kennedy: While Alex released numerous singles and remixes on PC Music’s compilation albums, his debut solo album didn’t arrive until 2020 when he released the records 7G and Apple.

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John Kennedy: A synthesis of futurist pop and experimental electronic music, the record’s boundaryless approach saw Alex praised as one of the most original producers of the day.

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John Kennedy: In addition to his own music, Alex has shared his production talents with numerous pop icons including Jonsi, Madonna, Troye Sivan and Caroline Polachek.

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John Kennedy: He also earned a Grammy nomination for his work on Beyonce’s All Up In Your Mind.

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John Kennedy: Since 2016, he has collaborated significantly with Charli XCX.

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John Kennedy: Their partnership has seen him produce a significant portion of her back catalog, including her most recent album, Brat.

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John Kennedy: In May 2024, Alex released his third studio album Britpop, a three-part 24-song odyssey exploring a wildly eclectic sonic universe, blending saccharin pop, experimental electronics and acoustic sounds into his hyperpop style.

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John Kennedy: Today, I’m at Strongroom Studios in Shoreditch, and I’m joined by Alex.

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John Kennedy: And what better way to start our conversation than by hearing something from the record.

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John Kennedy: This is Britpop.

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John Kennedy: It is Britpop by A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook, the title of the album.

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John Kennedy: And I’m very pleased to say that A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook, Alex, is here with me.

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John Kennedy: Hello.

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Alex Cook: Hi, hi.

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John Kennedy: It’s great to see you.

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John Kennedy: It’s good to be back.

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John Kennedy: So we were here a few weeks back talking to your good self and Charli XCX and George Daniel about Charli’s latest album, Brat.

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John Kennedy: We’re in another room, but in the same building as this.

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John Kennedy: So we’re here in Strongroom Studio 4.

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John Kennedy: But this time to just focus totally on you, Alex.

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Alex Cook: Yeah, and confusingly with a bit of Charli vocal thrown in, just to really make that clear.

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Alex Cook: No, I mean, it’s been a lot of music this year.

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Alex Cook: So yeah, it’s really fun seeing how, I don’t know, part of the same movement it is in a way.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, it’s very exciting.

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John Kennedy: And of course, you always bring a lot of music to us.

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John Kennedy: So Britpop is a three-disc album.

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Alex Cook: A relatively short one.

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John Kennedy: A relatively short one that each disc is eight tracks long.

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John Kennedy: What’s the idea?

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John Kennedy: What’s the concept?

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Alex Cook: Yeah, without making it sound too much like prog rock or anything.

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Alex Cook: I think I’m interested in doing something a bit different with the album format, especially when it’s my own AG.

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Alex Cook: Cook stuff.

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Alex Cook: You know, I realize I’m an artist-producer hybrid, and I don’t really love those sort of producer albums where it’s just a bunch of features.

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Alex Cook: But I also don’t want to just make an album where it’s me writing lyrics for everything.

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Alex Cook: And so I always have to find some kind of approach that will keep it fresh for me, at least, to do a body of work.

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Alex Cook: And so when I did Apple in 7G, Apple was the sort of traditional length.

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Alex Cook: 7G was seven discs and 49 tracks and really, really long.

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Alex Cook: But that by having an X and Y axis of two different approaches, but basically a double debut album, it just created all this stuff.

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Alex Cook: Yeah, to keep it interesting for me.

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Alex Cook: I like it when music feels like it’s in dialogue with itself, you know.

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Alex Cook: So I think it gives a listener a lot of ammo to kind of maybe creatively listen as well.

00:05:08.115 –> 00:05:12.175
Alex Cook: So that was an experiment I tried in 2020.

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Alex Cook: And then, I mean, I’ve been sort of working on the Britpop album since then.

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Alex Cook: It wasn’t always called that, but I wanted something else that could be a strategy to really lock it all in.

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Alex Cook: And I guess just calling it Britpop is something that I probably wouldn’t have done if I still lived in the UK.

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Alex Cook: But by going back and forth between the US and here, and I was in Montana for the whole pandemic, so a full year, gave the idea of this sort of almost fantasy memory of Britain and how ridiculous that is.

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Alex Cook: It gave it a sort of genuine resonance to me.

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Alex Cook: And obviously, there’s the genre itself from the 90s and all of that.

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Alex Cook: So it gave it this kind of baggage, which I thought was interesting, but I wasn’t totally certain until I thought the three discs.

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Alex Cook: And by calling them sort of past, present, future, I think it was a more cheeky but more real way to look at Britpop, to look at my own stuff.

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Alex Cook: You know, what would a sort of past version of my music be like?

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Alex Cook: What the present would be in the future?

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Alex Cook: And you know, PC Music, which I also did for 10 years and sort of counting in a way.

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Alex Cook: That was always or often called the future music, myself and Charli is, that whole kind of paradox of that being from 2013 and so on.

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Alex Cook: So I think I was at a good point probably in my own life slash career to be like, what does it mean this sort of approximate decade?

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Alex Cook: What is nostalgic for me?

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Alex Cook: What is present in terms of songwriting versus production?

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Alex Cook: So when I started to have the title Britpop and the three, DSC3 kind of filters or categories, it all just started to feel like an A.G. Cook album in a more meaningful way.

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Alex Cook: So hopefully, I mean, we’re going to look at one track from each day.

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Alex Cook: So hopefully that’ll make some sense as well.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, I think it really works.

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John Kennedy: So we’re going to look at, as you said, at three tracks, one from each disk.

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John Kennedy: And the first one we’re going to look at from disk one is Heartache.

00:07:06.815 –> 00:07:09.035
John Kennedy: So maybe we could have a blast to the master of that.

00:07:09.035 –> 00:07:09.235
Alex Cook: Yeah.

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John Kennedy: And then find out how you created it.

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Alex Cook: Definitely, here you go.

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John Kennedy: It is Heartache by A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook.

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John Kennedy: So many twists and turns already in just that short sequence that we’ve heard.

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Alex Cook: Yeah, about a third of the way through it, yeah.

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John Kennedy: Where did it begin?

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John Kennedy: What happens first with an A.

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John Kennedy: G.

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John Kennedy: Cook tune?

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Alex Cook: I start tracks in a few different ways.

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Alex Cook: I also don’t, as you can probably tell from my output, it’s not like I’m working on one thing and then until it’s done, and then work on the next thing.

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Alex Cook: I’m really working on lots of things in parallel.

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Alex Cook: I’ll try and get really quite far down a rabbit hole or something, but then do something that’s a real contrast with that.

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Alex Cook: I think even Charli and I alluded to that.

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Alex Cook: We’re seeing things from other perspectives and trying to mix it up.

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Alex Cook: It feels like we’re always working quickly even if we’re doing a lot of stuff.

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Alex Cook: I think Heartache, especially for me, this is kind of becomes quite obvious if I play the demo, but when I had these three discs and three categories, some tracks did move between them or I was uncertain.

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Alex Cook: Because sometimes I’m really writing a song as a song and thinking about the chords and melody and maybe even lyrics.

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Alex Cook: Other times, I’m obviously just messing with sound design, really trying to play with the sonics of it first.

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Alex Cook: Then I don’t like to get too lost in that actually.

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Alex Cook: My preference is really to do a skeleton of a track with quite bad sounds or not bad, but underdeveloped sounds and know that the bones of the song are decent.

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Alex Cook: And then I’m confident I can go in and mess around to make it sound cool.

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Alex Cook: And it’s quite interesting with Heartache because it is so sound design-y and so visceral in that way.

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Alex Cook: But actually, the rough demo was just me singing over something.

00:10:03.417 –> 00:10:09.697
Alex Cook: Not sure if it was, even I think when I was trying it, it was like, maybe this is going to go on the present disc, maybe it’s more of a song.

00:10:10.957 –> 00:10:15.077
Alex Cook: Even though it’s synths, I was sort of moving them into a more distorted guitar texture with me.

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Alex Cook: So here is a pretty old demo.

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John Kennedy: So, would that be you performing?

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Alex Cook: So, I really like to click everything in.

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Alex Cook: I’m very into piano roll midi.

00:11:01.065 –> 00:11:04.525
Alex Cook: I can play keys if I need to, if I’m messing around with the synth.

00:11:04.525 –> 00:11:08.305
Alex Cook: Sometimes I will, but that never sounds to me like the sort of A.

00:11:08.305 –> 00:11:08.525
Alex Cook: G.

00:11:08.525 –> 00:11:10.185
Alex Cook: Cook chord voice.

00:11:10.185 –> 00:11:19.545
Alex Cook: The sort of harmonic style I have is very much based on being able to flip the octave, mess with the intervals, inversions, all that stuff, and see things quite visually as well as listen to them.

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Alex Cook: So, that was a sort of midi drawn-in loop I would have had, but it’s probably as soon as I had the chords, I already had this idea of a sort of vocal line for it.

00:11:29.325 –> 00:11:39.225
Alex Cook: And it’s remained pretty unchanged from what would probably be my one-take hand-held SM-58 whatever style demo.

00:11:39.225 –> 00:11:42.685
Alex Cook: So, that was, yeah, I immediately had that idea.

00:11:42.685 –> 00:11:52.885
Alex Cook: The drum thing is kind of in there as well, this flipping between a kind of drumless and then this like sort of half-time, double-time ambiguous, but kind of crash symbol on the snare.

00:11:52.885 –> 00:12:00.265
Alex Cook: So, all the core DNA of the decisions that I’d make further down the line, all in there in that sort of gut feeling version demo.

00:12:00.265 –> 00:12:08.965
Alex Cook: But I probably parked that for a while and probably because it had me singing, I was like, oh, will I do a guitar version, lean more into that breakdown?

00:12:08.965 –> 00:12:21.105
Alex Cook: And after a while, I think I felt that, you know, there’s very few lyrics on this one anyway, but I felt like this could be a nice one to have a source of chorus rather than just vocal chops or whatever.

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Alex Cook: So I was like, actually, instead of trying to turn it into this more lengthy, slightly more organic present thing, let me just double down and kind of double down on the sort of nostalgia of it, almost get into that headspace of when I was doing, you know, tracks in 2014.

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Alex Cook: And I think maybe controversially or not, I don’t know.

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Alex Cook: I mean, some people find it quite annoying, but it also has this vocaloid replacing my vocal.

00:12:46.565 –> 00:12:48.965
Alex Cook: Is it called Synth V or something?

00:12:48.965 –> 00:12:52.625
Alex Cook: Yeah, Synthesizer V, Studio Basic.

00:12:52.625 –> 00:12:55.125
Alex Cook: Yeah, I just use a free version of that.

00:12:55.125 –> 00:13:01.325
Alex Cook: And I’ve messed around with that before a little bit, but I basically, you know, would type it in, draw it in.

00:13:01.325 –> 00:13:05.545
Alex Cook: And I think I had to manually draw in the bends to make it sound a bit more.

00:13:05.545 –> 00:13:20.245
Alex Cook: I mean, if you listen to what it ended up as, as just, you know, as a sort of isolated vocal, like that, that dipping of the heart, you know, I’m sort of imitating the way I would do it on the demo.

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Alex Cook: So once again, it’s sort of this uncanniness I quite like with a lot of my music where it’s clearly this vocal, I sort of distorted and bent it in a way that’s reminiscent of that handheld vocal and, and you know, I do, I start doing sort of layers where it’s like a sort of one note harmonies and pedals and stuff.

00:13:42.265 –> 00:13:51.285
Alex Cook: So, and you know, chopping up again, but I enjoyed that it was a song that started off as a very DIY vocal demo.

00:13:51.285 –> 00:13:55.925
Alex Cook: And then I find ways to make this artificial voice a little bit more interactive again.

00:13:56.945 –> 00:14:00.425
Alex Cook: So yeah, that was, this is a fun one just because it jumped around like that.

00:14:00.425 –> 00:14:05.925
Alex Cook: But actually what’s also worth noting across the three disc is that I’ve had different mixing approaches.

00:14:05.925 –> 00:14:13.205
Alex Cook: So actually for all of Disc 1, I worked with Alex Evans, who’s based in London, and I’ve worked with a little bit before.

00:14:13.205 –> 00:14:19.785
Alex Cook: And so this, I’m just playing from my file, but he really went in on making it sound very pristine.

00:14:19.785 –> 00:14:23.365
Alex Cook: That’s why it’s sort of the master and the mix of it is almost sort of larger than life.

00:14:23.365 –> 00:14:24.925
Alex Cook: It’s really balanced, you know.

00:14:26.085 –> 00:14:37.365
Alex Cook: The present disc, I mix all myself to keep it kind of DIY and to really make it sound like a lot of 7G was mixed by me because I’m not going to pay someone to mix 49 tracks when he did one.

00:14:38.105 –> 00:14:40.465
Alex Cook: So I give it a bit of that style.

00:14:40.465 –> 00:14:46.465
Alex Cook: And then disc three, because it’s a sort of ambiguous mix of tracks, it’s half mixed by me and half mixed by Jeff Swann.

00:14:46.465 –> 00:14:47.645
Alex Cook: It’s a long time collaborator.

00:14:47.645 –> 00:14:49.985
Alex Cook: He’s mixed a lot of Charli stuff with me.

00:14:49.985 –> 00:14:54.365
Alex Cook: He’s worked with Caroline, lots of other people, but I’ve worked with Jeff for a really long time.

00:14:54.445 –> 00:14:58.945
Alex Cook: So it’s also quite funny to work with probably the mix I’ve worked with the longest on the future and blah, blah, blah.

00:14:58.945 –> 00:15:03.465
Alex Cook: But I think I sort of already knew that as I was doubling down.

00:15:03.465 –> 00:15:20.365
Alex Cook: So I almost maybe threw in some challenges for someone like Alex Evans, you know, of these sounds moving between, yeah, these sort of full frequency, full spectrum moments and then these very quiet moments, which is a contrast I like anyway.

00:15:21.065 –> 00:15:24.425
Alex Cook: But, you know, if I highlight, I think it’s these simps.

00:15:24.425 –> 00:15:26.245
Alex Cook: So that’s a sort of laser bass.

00:15:26.245 –> 00:15:29.205
Alex Cook: It’s a reactor instrument that I’ve messed with.

00:15:30.285 –> 00:15:33.305
Alex Cook: And then it’s laser bass but mixed with these very clean.

00:15:33.305 –> 00:15:36.585
Alex Cook: I think it’s Spire doing those ones.

00:15:36.585 –> 00:15:42.785
Alex Cook: And then it kind of keeps cycling around to like clean, serum-inspired stuff again.

00:15:42.785 –> 00:15:55.965
Alex Cook: And then it goes back to all these kind of different versions, some of which are really pristine, some of which are, like I said, sort of full frequency, you know, almost annoyingly so.

00:15:55.965 –> 00:16:01.705
Alex Cook: So it was nice also by the time I really got stuck into the sound design, knowing that, okay, this one’s going to be mixed.

00:16:01.705 –> 00:16:05.985
Alex Cook: I’m just going to sort of have fun with it, have fun with some of the transitions especially.

00:16:07.225 –> 00:16:18.245
Alex Cook: There’s some really dodgy transitions I’d say in this song where I almost like, I think part of this track actually also evolved when I was doing a few DJ sets.

00:16:18.245 –> 00:16:23.265
Alex Cook: So it’s not exactly this version but this whole breakdown that happens in the middle.

00:16:26.905 –> 00:16:35.365
Alex Cook: And you know what’s interesting about a lot of these parts is similar stuff on a few of my other tracks but I’m usually drawing out the arps myself so they can be quite precise.

00:16:35.465 –> 00:16:38.065
Alex Cook: I’m not just sort of holding down a chord or whatever.

00:16:38.065 –> 00:16:45.285
Alex Cook: But that whole section was was done basically to make it longer and more dramatic for a DJ set of mine.

00:16:45.285 –> 00:16:48.185
Alex Cook: But I never really figured out how to get it back out of there.

00:16:48.185 –> 00:16:51.665
Alex Cook: So it does get back out but it does it in this kind of way.

00:17:07.331 –> 00:17:10.711
Alex Cook: And then it’s sort of still not back, there’s this like weird drum roll.

00:17:12.931 –> 00:17:14.011
Alex Cook: It’s like almost back.

00:17:14.011 –> 00:17:16.011
Alex Cook: And then it has this other section.

00:17:31.192 –> 00:17:32.772
Alex Cook: And then it’s kind of back.

00:17:32.772 –> 00:17:35.852
Alex Cook: And actually, when I DJ it now, I exaggerate those moments.

00:17:35.852 –> 00:17:38.052
Alex Cook: I’ll slow it down when it goes into that.

00:17:38.052 –> 00:17:41.712
Alex Cook: I’ll speed up again when the drum rolls start happening.

00:17:41.712 –> 00:17:47.872
Alex Cook: So sort of when I’m making this, I’m like, on one hand, I’m like, okay, I’ll let Alex Evans sort out the dynamics.

00:17:47.872 –> 00:17:49.912
Alex Cook: And I’m also like, oh, this will be fun to DJ.

00:17:49.912 –> 00:17:53.672
Alex Cook: This is the kind of thing I do, maybe the pitch or speed when I do DJ it.

00:17:53.672 –> 00:18:01.932
Alex Cook: And I think I really like this feeling in a lot of music I work on, even for other people, where it’s like anything could happen, you know.

00:18:01.932 –> 00:18:09.092
Alex Cook: You might have genre expectations or you might have even heard the song before in some other context, but you don’t 100% know.

00:18:09.092 –> 00:18:12.372
Alex Cook: And, you know, I’m not really that interested in traditional drops.

00:18:12.372 –> 00:18:17.472
Alex Cook: I don’t get a lot of pleasure from the sort of build up, build up, build up, and then like a drop, you know.

00:18:17.472 –> 00:18:21.572
Alex Cook: So I’m always looking for ways to amuse myself and still have the structure move forward.

00:18:21.672 –> 00:18:31.412
Alex Cook: But it’s very much that mantra kind of gradually become like anything could happen, because I think that’s the joy in music is that it really is just like abstracting the after experience.

00:18:31.412 –> 00:18:35.412
Alex Cook: So, yeah, so I really well, I mean, I can even look at some of these parts.

00:18:35.412 –> 00:18:43.672
John Kennedy: I mean, there’s so many questions because we’re, you know, I listen to your music and I think, well, what are these sounds that you’re creating and how are you creating them?

00:18:43.672 –> 00:18:43.832
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:18:43.832 –> 00:18:47.132
John Kennedy: And also, you know, maybe you could dig into those transitions.

00:18:47.132 –> 00:18:55.332
John Kennedy: And definitely, there’s a lot of a weird explain what we’re hearing, especially in terms of the production that you’re using to create those different things.

00:18:55.332 –> 00:19:09.332
Alex Cook: So I guess, like I was showing in the kind of foundation, the track is moving between different versions of the same kind of saw wave synth, like, you know, quite traditional, like I mentioned using Spire and Serum.

00:19:09.332 –> 00:19:13.372
Alex Cook: But I’m using them in very straightforward ways.

00:19:13.372 –> 00:19:15.072
Alex Cook: There’s not a lot of processing on them.

00:19:15.072 –> 00:19:16.392
Alex Cook: It’s almost sort of awkwardly dry.

00:19:17.472 –> 00:19:24.372
Alex Cook: But I’m just switching them up enough where maybe the decay will change or kind of the amount of chord info and that kind of stuff.

00:19:24.372 –> 00:19:30.732
Alex Cook: But then when I get into these sort of other transitions, it’s like, that’s not going to happen.

00:19:30.732 –> 00:19:34.632
Alex Cook: It’s like, it’s not particularly related to what’s going on there.

00:19:34.632 –> 00:19:44.892
Alex Cook: So the drums are kind of chopped up, but also they’re pitched up and down so many times that they become alias-y in a sense.

00:19:44.972 –> 00:19:47.912
Alex Cook: Like I’m almost trying to create that sort of limewire sound here.

00:19:47.912 –> 00:19:49.852
Alex Cook: Like, let’s see if it fades in.

00:19:55.635 –> 00:19:58.815
Alex Cook: So, this, if I turn off all the sound shifters…

00:20:02.055 –> 00:20:09.675
Alex Cook: It’s actually something quite like Hi-Fi, actually, but I just wanted it to kind of get lost around the other synth sounds.

00:20:09.675 –> 00:20:14.435
Alex Cook: There’s this, I think, this is one of them, what’s going on here.

00:20:15.955 –> 00:20:22.595
Alex Cook: So, these are the synth parts from earlier, but just with too much bend, you know, so too much glide.

00:20:23.635 –> 00:20:28.115
Alex Cook: So, they’re gliding so much, they’re kind of smudging the info.

00:20:28.115 –> 00:20:28.875
Alex Cook: What’s this one?

00:20:35.335 –> 00:20:41.075
John Kennedy: And so is this you just going in and in effect, kind of turning the dial one way or the other and…

00:20:41.075 –> 00:20:43.995
Alex Cook: Yes, but quite meticulously I’m…

00:20:43.995 –> 00:20:58.215
Alex Cook: Yeah, I’m either automating or clicking all these things in, and this track has a lot of bounce-in-place stuff because I didn’t want to lose the kind of exact way that I’d done it, and I wanted to make sure that automation was really locked in sometimes.

00:20:58.215 –> 00:20:59.995
Alex Cook: So, and you know, I’m doing funny things.

00:21:00.035 –> 00:21:07.335
Alex Cook: Because this vocal is like stretched with Logix, pretty rough algorithm for stretching audio.

00:21:09.895 –> 00:21:19.575
Alex Cook: So, there’s a bunch of effects on it, like reverb and some kind of distortion, but it’s really created by just the nasty way that audio gets pulled out.

00:21:19.575 –> 00:21:25.255
Alex Cook: But I think for me, it was sort of amusing to take a lot of these really clean sounds and have this section.

00:21:25.255 –> 00:21:35.995
Alex Cook: Actually, the other really interesting thing about this track is, I worked on it in a few stages, but when I was finishing it, I was getting into this plugin Simplant 2, which is quite new.

00:21:35.995 –> 00:21:44.115
Alex Cook: And I’ve mentioned it in a few places because I really do think it is a sort of step up in terms of what I’ve seen plugins do.

00:21:44.115 –> 00:21:46.975
Alex Cook: And actually, it can be quite chaotic to use in a nice way.

00:21:46.975 –> 00:21:52.895
Alex Cook: So I ended up using it and then cutting it up and putting it into a sampler so I could kind of treat it but as a drum kit.

00:21:52.895 –> 00:21:59.515
Alex Cook: But the drums in a lot of this also had that kind of uncanniness that I was going for with the vocals.

00:21:59.515 –> 00:22:01.155
Alex Cook: So let’s see.

00:22:01.155 –> 00:22:02.715
Alex Cook: Actually, I want to find the other part.

00:22:02.715 –> 00:22:06.095
Alex Cook: I think the cymbals are interesting in this one.

00:22:06.095 –> 00:22:08.975
Alex Cook: Yes, it’s sort of both of these cymbals as well.

00:22:13.075 –> 00:22:25.775
Alex Cook: So Simplant works by listening to an audio sample and then, I mean, it refers to itself as AI but it’s sort of just like a, it’s not online or anything.

00:22:25.855 –> 00:22:34.155
Alex Cook: It’s just using this sort of algorithm to listen or attempt to recreate the audio sample hundreds of times really quickly.

00:22:34.155 –> 00:22:36.395
Alex Cook: And then it’ll sort of try and synthesize it.

00:22:36.395 –> 00:22:45.275
Alex Cook: There’s no real sampling going on but it’s like, it’s almost like, you know, give it many, many, many failed attempts at recreating a symbol and it’ll eventually get there.

00:22:45.275 –> 00:22:49.195
Alex Cook: But what’s fun is that, let me do it, it won’t be exactly the same.

00:22:49.195 –> 00:22:56.975
Alex Cook: But if I open up Simplant, so I think I started with this really basic crash sound from the demo.

00:22:58.655 –> 00:23:03.855
Alex Cook: You know, it’s obviously just recorded and, you know, a little bit dirty.

00:23:03.875 –> 00:23:06.155
Alex Cook: And I’m listening to it here.

00:23:07.175 –> 00:23:10.095
Alex Cook: And then I just click generate patches.

00:23:17.990 –> 00:23:21.630
Alex Cook: And these are all editable as well, so it’s just going to keep…

00:23:26.690 –> 00:23:30.790
Alex Cook: You can hear that each one’s getting a little bit closer to the sample.

00:23:30.790 –> 00:23:40.230
Alex Cook: So it’s randomized, and then I assume it’s the AI or the algorithm that’s selecting from the random ones and being like, oh, this is a slightly closer match.

00:23:40.230 –> 00:23:45.850
Alex Cook: And it has this whole DNA metaphor in the interface, so it’s almost like, oh, this is a slightly better genetic match, let’s keep going.

00:23:46.690 –> 00:23:52.530
Alex Cook: And you’ll hear, the more it’s doing, they’re all actually pretty close to it now, because that kind of symbol is doable.

00:23:52.530 –> 00:24:00.930
Alex Cook: If you throw a vocal in, it would be interesting, but pretty garbled, or sometimes I’ve done a guitar chord and it kind of gets there, but it’s a…

00:24:00.930 –> 00:24:06.930
Alex Cook: But yeah, once you click on one of them, you can recall any of them.

00:24:06.930 –> 00:24:11.270
Alex Cook: So that’s an early one that kind of missed the boat, and then here’s a later one that’s pretty good.

00:24:11.270 –> 00:24:20.730
Alex Cook: But you can then select and edit any of them really, so you can be like, this is me just editing it around, you know?

00:24:20.730 –> 00:24:22.390
Alex Cook: So it’s pretty fascinating.

00:24:22.390 –> 00:24:37.890
Alex Cook: And actually as a shortcut, because I was really just toying with it, probably for the first time, I just recorded all the versions it made and threw them all into a sampler so I could then play back.

00:24:41.230 –> 00:24:42.010
Alex Cook: So I just had them.

00:24:42.430 –> 00:24:56.150
Alex Cook: And you know, it’s similar to the sound, but once again, it’s that uncanny thing where it’s funny enough to have the symbol be like the snare effectively in the song, but then to also make it this almost artificial acoustic symbol.

00:24:56.150 –> 00:25:03.090
John Kennedy: Yeah, because it also at the same time sounds like you’re working in a metal foundry or something and just hammering.

00:25:03.090 –> 00:25:13.710
Alex Cook: Yeah, and there’s a lot of like, you know, different approaches to sort of metallic sounds and definitely, I’ve always been influenced by Sophie and she mastered it on a kind of another level.

00:25:13.710 –> 00:25:15.610
Alex Cook: And there’s been a lot of imitations of that too.

00:25:15.610 –> 00:25:25.450
Alex Cook: I think the space that I’ve enjoyed looking at is once again, that kind of sometimes getting into deep synthesis and effects, but other times being quite loose with it.

00:25:25.450 –> 00:25:36.430
Alex Cook: Like, like I am drawn to approaches that are slightly randomized or feel like a kind of collaborator throwing something at me and then, okay, I can tweak it and do other things and make decisions.

00:25:36.530 –> 00:25:47.930
Alex Cook: But that’s why I think that plugin especially, it’s just the, you know, it’s like a bit of that little two-minute waiting game when it comes up with things and all the snapshots, it’s just, it’s really fun.

00:25:47.930 –> 00:25:50.210
Alex Cook: So that was, that became the sort of foundation of it.

00:25:50.210 –> 00:25:55.750
Alex Cook: And then that’s the sound that’s getting sort of chopped up and messed around in some of those breakdowns.

00:25:55.750 –> 00:26:02.410
Alex Cook: There’s other funny things like the second weird breakdown where it’s like almost dubstep.

00:26:06.810 –> 00:26:12.250
Alex Cook: So in this whole part, I’m, I’m really just trying to create once again, quite messy synth sounds.

00:26:12.250 –> 00:26:16.070
Alex Cook: There’s one that I labeled as Prince because it sort of reminds me.

00:26:17.290 –> 00:26:18.910
John Kennedy: Right, I can see that.

00:26:18.910 –> 00:26:25.970
Alex Cook: Of when he’s doing some Juno thing, but he has like the effects turned up way too high and you’re just hearing like the feedback of the flanger.

00:26:25.970 –> 00:26:28.110
Alex Cook: So I love that kind of texture.

00:26:28.110 –> 00:26:29.250
Alex Cook: I forgot what flanger that is.

00:26:29.530 –> 00:26:34.890
Alex Cook: I bounced in place this one, but you know, any of them really, if you just set it way too hard.

00:26:34.890 –> 00:26:37.650
Alex Cook: And then I think this was of…

00:26:38.770 –> 00:26:41.810
Alex Cook: This is, you know, a synth that’s too low.

00:26:41.810 –> 00:26:45.310
Alex Cook: And so you’re really hearing the oscillator accidentally.

00:26:45.310 –> 00:26:54.550
Alex Cook: And I think I put OTT on that as well, which is I try and I joke a lot with, you know, about OTT because I think it’s it’s sort of like a curse.

00:26:54.550 –> 00:26:58.370
Alex Cook: Once you start using it, it makes everything unbelievably loud and transienty.

00:26:58.590 –> 00:27:03.350
Alex Cook: And I have some friends get sort of temporarily addicted to it.

00:27:03.350 –> 00:27:06.290
Alex Cook: But that’s why I was like, OK, this is the section where I’m going to use OTT.

00:27:06.290 –> 00:27:09.890
Alex Cook: One of the things because it’ll, you know, if you hear it without it, it’s still there.

00:27:11.150 –> 00:27:19.070
Alex Cook: But it doesn’t have that kind of over pumped, you know, where you’re hearing every frequency kind of mashed together in a way.

00:27:19.070 –> 00:27:32.450
Alex Cook: So that was a little, you know, is enjoyable to then once again, like just counteracts the sort of clean, precise kind of approach at the beginning of the track with these bits that are just quite aggressive.

00:27:32.450 –> 00:27:34.090
John Kennedy: And is OTT a plugin?

00:27:34.090 –> 00:27:36.910
Alex Cook: Yeah, OTT is a sort of, it’s a free plugin, actually.

00:27:36.910 –> 00:27:38.010
Alex Cook: It’s done by Xfer.

00:27:38.010 –> 00:27:41.430
Alex Cook: It’s a, yeah, it’s a sort of multiband compressor.

00:27:41.430 –> 00:27:50.410
Alex Cook: But a friend of mine who’s looked into all this stuff much more than I have, claims it’s got this distinctive sound because of the different frequency bands.

00:27:50.470 –> 00:27:53.070
Alex Cook: So you’ve got like low, mid and high.

00:27:53.070 –> 00:27:55.230
Alex Cook: They’re phasing slightly.

00:27:55.230 –> 00:27:58.210
Alex Cook: They got this, it’s not a super clean one.

00:27:58.210 –> 00:28:00.710
Alex Cook: So it has this sound, things being really present.

00:28:00.710 –> 00:28:11.630
Alex Cook: But it’s very much affiliated, I would say, with like a Squilex vocal chop, where it’s really, yeah, you hear the kind of, it’s almost got an ASMR quality to it because everything’s so pumped.

00:28:11.630 –> 00:28:15.990
Alex Cook: And yeah, I think it’s maybe worth looking at some of the basic chords themselves.

00:28:15.990 –> 00:28:16.910
Alex Cook: Let’s see if this is a good one.

00:28:22.762 –> 00:28:30.022
Alex Cook: So, you know, this is very classic, me keying stuff in, but it’s really got this internal melody, where it’s not…

00:28:30.162 –> 00:28:36.122
Alex Cook: I try and avoid it being this sort of basic triad as you play it on a piano or keyboard or something.

00:28:36.122 –> 00:28:44.442
Alex Cook: So I think that’s a big part of how I write, having these kind of internal voices in the chord voicings.

00:28:44.442 –> 00:28:46.542
Alex Cook: And then, you know, that is enough of a…

00:28:46.542 –> 00:28:48.342
Alex Cook: I think that’s the real seed of the whole track.

00:28:48.342 –> 00:28:53.002
Alex Cook: You hear the way it kind of works with the vocal line and the way it kind of has a…

00:28:53.002 –> 00:28:56.582
Alex Cook: I also find, you know, when I’m doing these sort of chords…

00:28:59.782 –> 00:29:05.922
Alex Cook: So I’m just dragging vertically to sort of hear the different things, but it has a lot of suspensions in it.

00:29:05.922 –> 00:29:17.302
Alex Cook: You know, I mean, I don’t use music theory a lot when I’m thinking, but I always find myself drawn to this sort of the tension of a suspended note being resolved or not resolved and all that stuff.

00:29:17.442 –> 00:29:32.042
Alex Cook: So I think that’s a huge part in my work, and especially taking those kind of suspended chords and then playing with things like detune or texture, which just make it even more kind of dramatic.

00:29:32.042 –> 00:30:02.022
Alex Cook: But also I think it, at least from my perspective, it puts the chord progression somewhere between this kind of happy, sad, you know, I don’t really believe in like sort of full blown, like euphoria in kind of tracks, but I like the sort of, once again, it’s another sort of slight ambiguity of this kind of uplifting-ish thing, but with these suspensions and kind of treatments that make it feel a little bit like it’s on some cycle of resolution.

00:30:03.362 –> 00:30:07.462
Alex Cook: Yeah, I’m wondering if whatever, I mean, even the way it ends, I’m trying to…

00:30:09.982 –> 00:30:25.962
Alex Cook: Let’s see, I think the, I mean, the main, once again, this is bounce in place, but yeah, just, yeah, I mean, laser bass is like another sort of free, I think it’s free or at least not very expensive kind of thing.

00:30:25.962 –> 00:30:36.542
Alex Cook: You can just plug in to Reaktor by Native Instruments, and it was done a while ago, and you can just, you can kind of add more and more, I guess, partials and things to it.

00:30:36.542 –> 00:30:40.602
John Kennedy: And when you are working on a track like this, are you working sequentially?

00:30:40.602 –> 00:30:53.342
John Kennedy: Because I get the impression when I’m listening to it, that you’ve established the ideas that are going on, and then you’re kind of experimenting with those ideas, and extrapolating, continuing them.

00:30:53.342 –> 00:31:01.522
John Kennedy: But it’s almost just out of your own curiosity, and that each twist and turn is because you kind of wonder, oh, what happens if I do this?

00:31:01.522 –> 00:31:01.922
John Kennedy: What happens?

00:31:01.922 –> 00:31:04.902
John Kennedy: And then do you just reach a point, you think, right, enough.

00:31:05.282 –> 00:31:09.882
Alex Cook: Yeah, I feel like I usually know when a track is finished, honestly.

00:31:09.982 –> 00:31:17.482
Alex Cook: I don’t like, I’ll be like, I’ll save it for some edit or some DJ version, or I’ll do something else with it.

00:31:17.482 –> 00:31:26.282
Alex Cook: Yeah, I kind of want it to have a certain amount of ideas, and once again, a certain kind of, I don’t know, lack of obviousness, maybe.

00:31:26.282 –> 00:31:35.462
Alex Cook: Or just, you know, even for me, when I’m a bit of an aggressive listener, I’ll really enjoy listening to lots of different kinds of music, but I’m always like, oh, wouldn’t it be fun if it did this as well?

00:31:35.462 –> 00:31:38.282
Alex Cook: So I just try and create that feeling, I think, in a lot of my stuff.

00:31:38.282 –> 00:31:43.102
Alex Cook: And then once I’ve, once it does that enough times, I like, oh, that’s good for this run through.

00:31:43.102 –> 00:31:45.682
John Kennedy: And by aggressive listener, what do you mean?

00:31:45.682 –> 00:31:52.442
Alex Cook: I guess I’m constantly, I mean, it’s very like practical being a producer, like how do they do this?

00:31:52.442 –> 00:31:53.642
Alex Cook: What could they have done?

00:31:53.642 –> 00:32:00.642
Alex Cook: Would it be better if this happened or if, you know, like I love how it does X and Y, but actually I wish it also did this.

00:32:00.742 –> 00:32:23.862
Alex Cook: And then I just basically start imagining that or, oh, if only this had different drums or something, you know, like especially with genres, I’m not even that I don’t even have a sort of horse in the race, you know, like I listen to like metal, for example, and I love the full frequency of way they’ll record guitars and do things and the crazy dynamics with vocals.

00:32:23.862 –> 00:32:29.462
Alex Cook: And then I feel like the metal drums always like mic the same way to the point where they kind of remind me of like midi drum kits.

00:32:29.582 –> 00:32:44.802
Alex Cook: You know, they’re just like, it’s so tight and like, I know it’s a hallmark of how the genres evolved, but I’m just like, wouldn’t that be nice to just, you know, do some other treatment to that and just not make it feel like it’s just this ultra clean fast drum in the room.

00:32:44.802 –> 00:32:50.502
Alex Cook: So, and then, okay, there are other, there’s like historic, slightly more lo-fi metal stuff, whatever.

00:32:50.502 –> 00:32:56.482
Alex Cook: I’m saying this could just be on the radio or on some random thing, and I’ll just, I’ll get lost in imagining that.

00:32:57.162 –> 00:33:04.762
Alex Cook: I feel like I can genuinely take a bit of inspiration, but maybe adversarial inspiration from like anything that I hear.

00:33:04.762 –> 00:33:08.722
Alex Cook: And then of course, there’s music that I love, which I really deeply influenced by.

00:33:08.722 –> 00:33:20.202
Alex Cook: But I think that’s what I mean by aggressive listening, like, oh, throw any kind of thing at me, and I’ll probably have some opinion of, at least in my world, what would make it more interesting for me.

00:33:20.702 –> 00:33:29.302
John Kennedy: Yeah, I love that, though, you know, and I can clearly understand what you’re talking about in reflection of your own creativity and what you create.

00:33:29.302 –> 00:33:36.582
John Kennedy: You know, you can hear that you draw from so many different directions, but there’s this hunger to keep searching.

00:33:36.582 –> 00:33:43.442
Alex Cook: I think also, I think I really like to feed it back into a sort of musical quality itself.

00:33:43.442 –> 00:33:49.462
Alex Cook: So like, I was even just toying around with an ultra, you know, basic laser bass patch.

00:33:50.862 –> 00:34:03.462
Alex Cook: So it can be, you know, this kind of, what sounds sort of FM-y, but you can add sort of too many, you know, beating kind of layers to it.

00:34:03.462 –> 00:34:09.462
Alex Cook: And you end up with this kind of, you know, pretty atonal sound.

00:34:09.462 –> 00:34:16.902
Alex Cook: But because that’s on a dial, you know, you’ve got something harmonic on one side and something sort of percussive on another side.

00:34:16.962 –> 00:34:31.762
Alex Cook: And then if you start messing, messing with octaves and other things, so that already, not only is that sort of quote unquote, like, oh, extreme or kind of fun synthesis, it’s also, it has a sort of musical goal inherent in it.

00:34:31.762 –> 00:34:38.082
Alex Cook: You know, suddenly I’ve just got one sound that could either be a baseline or, like I said, be percussive or be this atonal thing.

00:34:38.082 –> 00:34:40.762
Alex Cook: And you’ve got a dial that goes between those two points.

00:34:40.762 –> 00:34:53.222
Alex Cook: So there’s already a whole like sort of composition exercise or kind of sound design tool kind of suggested just, and that’s me just on one setting of that, you know.

00:34:53.222 –> 00:34:58.082
Alex Cook: So I think, yeah, I can, I enjoy being very quickly inspired by those things.

00:34:58.082 –> 00:34:59.862
Alex Cook: And then it doesn’t mean I’ll just stick with laser bass.

00:34:59.862 –> 00:35:07.362
Alex Cook: I’ll be like, oh, I’ll just use one tiny bit of that and flesh it out in another way or mess with chords or effects or vocals or something.

00:35:07.362 –> 00:35:11.042
Alex Cook: But yeah, that’s very much how I sort of go down those rabbit holes.

00:35:11.042 –> 00:35:16.262
Alex Cook: But you know, other times I think this one definitely feels like more of a track than a song.

00:35:16.262 –> 00:35:20.982
Alex Cook: But other times, I mean, I’m the kind of person where lyrics sort of come last.

00:35:20.982 –> 00:35:35.342
Alex Cook: But I would say some of the dissed two songs, especially some of the ones we’re not looking at because there’s almost no production, you know, there’s a few tracks on there that are really just a couple of layers and sound almost photographic, like that was just me writing a song in the room.

00:35:35.342 –> 00:35:38.502
Alex Cook: So I think that’s become another parallel interest of mine.

00:35:38.502 –> 00:35:54.962
Alex Cook: And I think there is a there is a parallel there, but that’s really sort of doubling down on I would say the meaning of the song and the lyrics and the shape and the structure of that without being too fussy about like testing out every sound or anything.

00:35:54.962 –> 00:36:03.002
Alex Cook: So I think what it’s also, I like to go really hard in this kind of zone so that when I come to a song that I sort of care about, it’s almost like I’m not even going to go there.

00:36:03.002 –> 00:36:04.862
Alex Cook: I’m just going to let it do its thing.

00:36:05.182 –> 00:36:15.162
Alex Cook: So I think I’ve thought more and more about song craft and songwriting in parallel to sort of track making and production.

00:36:15.162 –> 00:36:18.002
Alex Cook: Of course, they come together a lot.

00:36:18.002 –> 00:36:25.482
Alex Cook: But I think because I enjoy avoiding the middle ground, so I’ll be like, okay, we’re going all in this way for this one.

00:36:25.482 –> 00:36:31.102
Alex Cook: And then I can just completely leave it alone and almost toy with it feeling unproduced even if it is produced.

00:36:31.102 –> 00:36:33.522
Alex Cook: So that’s my other motivation, I think.

00:36:34.762 –> 00:36:41.062
Alex Cook: I would find my own music quite boring if I ticked all the boxes of the stuff I do on every single track.

00:36:41.062 –> 00:36:46.602
Alex Cook: I don’t want someone to come away being like, oh, that was a great lyric with some great sound design, with some cool mixing, with some great structure.

00:36:46.602 –> 00:36:58.502
Alex Cook: It’s like, no, once you start doing all of that stuff together, and I’m not going to name it easy targets or whatever, but there’s a sort of, that’s something else, and I think that’s further away from kind of music, really.

00:36:58.502 –> 00:37:00.622
Alex Cook: It just becomes some other exercise.

00:37:00.622 –> 00:37:01.182
Alex Cook: So that’s what I mean.

00:37:01.182 –> 00:37:13.622
Alex Cook: It’s like actually limiting yourself, or going between full freedom, and then once you’ve isolated something really interesting, really limiting yourself to that, so you can sort of look directly at it, and then moving on to something else.

00:37:13.622 –> 00:37:16.542
Alex Cook: That’s sort of at least how my brain works with these.

00:37:16.542 –> 00:37:17.542
John Kennedy: Fascinating.

00:37:17.542 –> 00:37:20.422
John Kennedy: Should we have a blast of the ending of Heartache?

00:37:20.422 –> 00:37:21.062
Alex Cook: Yeah, sure.

00:37:21.162 –> 00:37:23.722
John Kennedy: We’ll move on to our next selection from Disc 2.

00:37:23.722 –> 00:37:24.002
Alex Cook: Great.

00:38:15.298 –> 00:38:16.598
John Kennedy: It is Heartache by A.

00:38:16.598 –> 00:38:16.838
John Kennedy: G.

00:38:16.838 –> 00:38:17.158
John Kennedy: Cook.

00:38:17.158 –> 00:38:18.238
John Kennedy: Alex, are you a dancer?

00:38:18.238 –> 00:38:21.078
John Kennedy: Do you dance around when you’re making this stuff?

00:38:21.078 –> 00:38:24.138
Alex Cook: Well, it sounds like I’m a professional dancer or something.

00:38:24.138 –> 00:38:27.318
John Kennedy: But just, I think when you listen to that, it makes you want to jump up and down.

00:38:27.518 –> 00:38:41.678
Alex Cook: Yeah, I really, like I sort of mentioned, DJing and performing these things and my live shows range from playing with a couple of other musicians or guitarist.

00:38:42.278 –> 00:38:54.718
Alex Cook: I’ve done those kind of live shows as well as pure DJ sets and also kind of real hybrids where it feels like a DJ set and suddenly I’m singing, and there’s a spotlight and suddenly I go about DJing or moving once again between those two points.

00:38:54.718 –> 00:38:59.338
Alex Cook: But yeah, I mean, DJing and dancing and that kind of stuff is connected.

00:39:00.098 –> 00:39:03.478
Alex Cook: And yeah, not just making people dance or whatever, but really going for it and having fun.

00:39:03.478 –> 00:39:08.858
Alex Cook: Even my DJ style, I’m like, I think I stopped wearing headphones to DJ about eight years ago.

00:39:08.858 –> 00:39:12.318
Alex Cook: Like I just don’t, I’m not trying to create perfect mixes.

00:39:12.318 –> 00:39:19.638
Alex Cook: I’m trying to make special edits and do weird stuff with the pitch wheels and sort of use cues to sample things.

00:39:19.638 –> 00:39:32.538
Alex Cook: And I’m just sort of, I’m trying to make it more into a sort of performance and kind of sort of celebration of not just my music, but other people’s sort of work that I can edit together.

00:39:32.538 –> 00:39:37.318
Alex Cook: You know, so, so yeah, I think it’s a big part of it is being pretty loose with it rather.

00:39:37.318 –> 00:39:42.458
Alex Cook: You know, I don’t even see DJing as trying to find the perfect transition or get the perfect BPM up and up.

00:39:42.458 –> 00:39:44.998
Alex Cook: You know, I just throw all of that out the window.

00:39:45.118 –> 00:39:56.218
Alex Cook: And I’m just, it’s all, but yeah, once again, I think even when I think about dancing to something, I’d rather have a kind of switch up or, you know, do something rather than be locked in a kind of techno groove for a few hours.

00:39:56.218 –> 00:40:04.818
John Kennedy: I’m just, I’m just trying to picture you when you’re making these tracks and whether you’re, you know, say when you get to the end of hard take and you think, I think it’s done and you’re kind of, are you jumping up and down?

00:40:04.818 –> 00:40:05.538
Alex Cook: That’s really, no.

00:40:05.538 –> 00:40:06.618
John Kennedy: Are you locked in your headphones?

00:40:06.618 –> 00:40:10.038
Alex Cook: I think by that point, and I actually, I actually barely use headphones.

00:40:10.038 –> 00:40:19.198
Alex Cook: I really, really prefer using monitors if I can, and if I’m on the move, of course, I even, I’m trying to have open back one, so it sounds like I’m in the room.

00:40:19.198 –> 00:40:22.878
Alex Cook: I actually don’t really like music following me around.

00:40:22.878 –> 00:40:30.338
Alex Cook: It sounds weird, but I like that I could be, not dancing in the room, but moving around and it feeling slightly spatial.

00:40:30.338 –> 00:40:36.618
Alex Cook: And yeah, I just like that about music, even creating more variety while I’m making it.

00:40:36.618 –> 00:40:41.718
Alex Cook: So I wouldn’t be like thrashing around, but I would be probably moving around and getting a sense of it.

00:40:42.418 –> 00:40:44.438
Alex Cook: So yeah, that’s probably how I’d finish a track.

00:40:44.438 –> 00:40:45.018
John Kennedy: Excellent.

00:40:45.018 –> 00:40:45.578
John Kennedy: I love that.

00:40:45.578 –> 00:40:49.338
John Kennedy: No, it’s just that I think you probably inspire frenzy.

00:40:49.618 –> 00:40:49.938
Alex Cook: Right.

00:40:49.938 –> 00:40:50.338
Alex Cook: Yeah.

00:40:50.338 –> 00:40:54.058
Alex Cook: I mean, no, it’s all part of the scene, isn’t it?

00:40:54.058 –> 00:40:55.158
John Kennedy: Yeah, definitely.

00:40:55.158 –> 00:40:55.498
Alex Cook: Right.

00:40:55.498 –> 00:40:56.478
John Kennedy: We’re going to take a quick break.

00:40:56.478 –> 00:40:58.498
John Kennedy: We’ll be back to look at Serenade.

00:41:01.278 –> 00:41:03.038
John Kennedy: The next song we’re going to look at from A.

00:41:03.038 –> 00:41:03.238
John Kennedy: G.

00:41:03.238 –> 00:41:08.778
John Kennedy: Cook’s Britpop is Serenade, from Disc 2, The Present.

00:41:08.778 –> 00:41:10.198
John Kennedy: So let’s hear a blast of the master.

00:42:24.946 –> 00:42:29.066
John Kennedy: Just a little taste of Serenade then from Disc 2 of Britpop.

00:42:29.066 –> 00:42:32.826
John Kennedy: And Alex, you mentioned that this is the present disc.

00:42:32.826 –> 00:42:34.486
John Kennedy: By that, what do you mean?

00:42:34.486 –> 00:42:36.346
John Kennedy: No, is this you right now?

00:42:36.346 –> 00:42:37.426
John Kennedy: Or is…

00:42:37.426 –> 00:42:48.846
John Kennedy: Because it’s interesting, because in some ways, if you listen to the whole disc as the overall thing, this is the one that relates mostly to the idea of what many people would know as Britpop.

00:42:48.846 –> 00:42:52.726
John Kennedy: No, the songwriting seems more akin to that.

00:42:52.726 –> 00:42:54.086
Alex Cook: Yeah, I’m always having fun with that.

00:42:54.386 –> 00:42:57.766
Alex Cook: It’s a bit facetious calling anything past, present, future really, isn’t it?

00:42:57.766 –> 00:43:18.286
Alex Cook: I think when I truly think of stuff in the present and why those tracks made sense in the present disc, on one level, it is just because breaking out in the middle of the album with these stripped back songs just felt like a really nice way to have it be this cycle that you could say it’s the emotional core of it or the sort of lyrical core.

00:43:19.126 –> 00:43:31.926
Alex Cook: But also because, and actually this track is cheating slightly, I would say some of the other tracks like Nice to Meet You and Without are really bare bones and they were recorded as soon as I wrote them.

00:43:31.926 –> 00:43:39.006
Alex Cook: And so in that sense, they really felt like the present as in they are just almost a live recording, like just a few clicks away from that.

00:43:39.006 –> 00:43:56.526
Alex Cook: So this one, because it’s track one of this disc, it’s actually a bit of a transitional track, which is also why it made sense, I guess, to look at on this podcast, because there is a little bit more production, or rather there’s a sort of flip that happens.

00:43:56.526 –> 00:43:59.126
Alex Cook: It was also quite early on in the album process for me.

00:43:59.126 –> 00:44:08.086
Alex Cook: I think once I figured out the guitar tone for this, it made me a lot more confident about committing to guitar for a whole bunch of these present tracks.

00:44:08.346 –> 00:44:14.046
Alex Cook: And I mean, I did have a whole 7G, whole 7G disc, A.

00:44:14.046 –> 00:44:16.346
Alex Cook: G guitar, whatever, that was music guitar.

00:44:16.346 –> 00:44:25.166
Alex Cook: I’ve had a very on-off relationship with what I’m going to call real instruments versus, you know, making everything on the computer.

00:44:25.166 –> 00:44:30.606
Alex Cook: I played guitar a bit as a teenager, really socially, to be in bands with friends.

00:44:30.606 –> 00:44:35.546
Alex Cook: I would write things, but I didn’t have a, didn’t have very deep knowledge of it, really.

00:44:36.046 –> 00:44:42.226
Alex Cook: Just a muscle memory of like rock songs and the sort of indie music of the mid 2000s and stuff.

00:44:42.226 –> 00:44:45.346
Alex Cook: So I had, I definitely had a bit of a phase of that.

00:44:45.346 –> 00:44:59.486
Alex Cook: But as I truly got deeply, deeply into making music and using logic and doing these sort of tracks, what eventually became PC and Proto PC stuff, I almost had like a hard rule of like no instruments allowed.

00:44:59.486 –> 00:45:06.026
Alex Cook: Like I mentioned clicking in notes, but it’s like midi keyboards or bands basically from the studio, unless someone really needs one.

00:45:06.026 –> 00:45:08.446
Alex Cook: I sold loads of guitar pedals I had at the time.

00:45:09.466 –> 00:45:15.006
Alex Cook: I put my one Squier Strat into an attic and it’s been completely wrecked.

00:45:15.006 –> 00:45:18.546
Alex Cook: It was really like laptops, speakers, and a microphone.

00:45:18.546 –> 00:45:20.266
Alex Cook: Like that’s all you need.

00:45:20.266 –> 00:45:26.546
Alex Cook: I found it just very inspiring that you could theoretically make anything from the box.

00:45:26.546 –> 00:45:29.426
Alex Cook: Over the years, I had it challenged.

00:45:29.506 –> 00:45:36.066
Alex Cook: Although in principle, I really love that energy, the arrogance of that.

00:45:36.066 –> 00:45:38.866
Alex Cook: There’s something that I still really root for.

00:45:42.306 –> 00:45:49.066
Alex Cook: It was around the time that it was really doubling down, making music with friends of mine.

00:45:49.126 –> 00:45:57.626
Alex Cook: So it would be me and Dan or Danny L Harle sitting together learning logic and like figuring out these crazy sounds.

00:45:57.626 –> 00:46:08.246
Alex Cook: It would eventually be me and Finn Keen, who I’ve worked on a lot of stuff with, Charli’s stuff too, and you know, we were in some of those bands together, and then it would be us abandoning that and like making stuff on computers.

00:46:08.246 –> 00:46:21.726
Alex Cook: And then quite shortly after that, you know, I also met Sophie and just seeing her do completely next level, purely synthesized stuff, kind of blew everything else up for me.

00:46:21.746 –> 00:46:28.866
Alex Cook: And the inkling I had about laptops being the answer was sort of completely answered by that.

00:46:28.866 –> 00:46:32.806
Alex Cook: And that’s its own sort of podcast probably.

00:46:32.806 –> 00:46:45.786
Alex Cook: But all to say that I, you know, up until a few years ago, really abandoned any idea of instruments, even like an analog synth, I’d be like scoffing at and be like, no, let’s just do the plugin.

00:46:45.886 –> 00:46:48.126
John Kennedy: And had you had any other musical training?

00:46:48.126 –> 00:46:49.426
John Kennedy: I mean, you mentioned you played guitar.

00:46:49.426 –> 00:46:51.246
John Kennedy: Did you do piano or anything like that?

00:46:51.406 –> 00:46:52.466
Alex Cook: I had a funny journey.

00:46:52.766 –> 00:46:57.246
Alex Cook: I played, I had a piano teacher as a kid and I was pretty young.

00:46:57.246 –> 00:46:58.306
Alex Cook: It was like eight or something.

00:46:58.306 –> 00:47:03.646
Alex Cook: And I think I got to the level of sight reading and then hated it so much that I packed it up.

00:47:03.646 –> 00:47:06.586
Alex Cook: But it’s funny that I could sort of do that.

00:47:06.586 –> 00:47:09.866
Alex Cook: And I think some of the muscle memory from that is somewhere.

00:47:10.006 –> 00:47:12.146
Alex Cook: I was a very visual person growing up, really.

00:47:12.146 –> 00:47:13.166
Alex Cook: I was very into drawing.

00:47:14.006 –> 00:47:16.566
Alex Cook: I got brought up in a very visual family.

00:47:16.566 –> 00:47:17.466
Alex Cook: I’m an only child.

00:47:17.466 –> 00:47:19.326
Alex Cook: I didn’t have siblings being like, check this out.

00:47:19.326 –> 00:47:21.326
Alex Cook: Like, wear this hoodie or whatever.

00:47:21.326 –> 00:47:29.066
Alex Cook: I was really just like, I’ve said this in other interviews, but it’s very true that the music that translated me was stuff with a very rich visual world.

00:47:29.066 –> 00:47:36.026
Alex Cook: So Daft Punk, Gorillaz, that kind of stuff that was like literally a visual cartoon.

00:47:36.866 –> 00:47:42.186
Alex Cook: That is the stuff that really, and then, okay, that led to other things.

00:47:42.186 –> 00:47:47.526
Alex Cook: I was aware of other music at the time, but those are things I really felt super interested in.

00:47:47.686 –> 00:47:57.886
Alex Cook: It was only later, I think, I just swapped into being very interested in recording my friends, and recording silly stuff, and just using the computer as a tool.

00:47:58.686 –> 00:48:01.426
Alex Cook: I would say this is my later teens, really.

00:48:01.426 –> 00:48:08.886
Alex Cook: And so I think at GCSE level, I swapped into doing music, but I didn’t have an instrument, really.

00:48:08.886 –> 00:48:11.706
Alex Cook: So I actually learned music theory kind of from scratch.

00:48:11.706 –> 00:48:19.666
Alex Cook: Normally people learn it with something, and I sort of staggered through with guitar as my instrument, and like learning theory in an abstract way.

00:48:19.666 –> 00:48:22.046
Alex Cook: Oh no, that wasn’t even GCSE, that was later, that was A levels.

00:48:22.046 –> 00:48:24.786
Alex Cook: So that was me, age 16, 17.

00:48:24.786 –> 00:48:26.486
John Kennedy: And did you do A level music then?

00:48:26.486 –> 00:48:27.386
Alex Cook: Yeah, so that’s right.

00:48:27.446 –> 00:48:30.506
Alex Cook: I didn’t do GCSE, I started at A level.

00:48:30.506 –> 00:48:34.926
Alex Cook: And I just, yeah, I just sort of learned in a pretty abstract way.

00:48:34.926 –> 00:48:44.146
Alex Cook: And then at university, I eventually, after maybe starting thinking I do art, going into a music course, it was music computing.

00:48:44.146 –> 00:48:46.166
Alex Cook: So it was all involving programming.

00:48:46.166 –> 00:49:01.366
Alex Cook: And once again, some music theory and analysis of classical music, but done for me in quite an abstract way where I wasn’t, it wasn’t me sitting at a piano or it was really, it was quite cerebral and I had like long form binary exams and that kind of stuff.

00:49:02.486 –> 00:49:05.926
Alex Cook: It was pretty ridiculous and they fixed the course up a little bit since then.

00:49:05.926 –> 00:49:19.446
Alex Cook: But so yeah, I’ve had moments of formal training, which is why I sometimes do think about like, you know, I mentioned like suspensions or other things, or I think about voice leading and a few things like that.

00:49:19.446 –> 00:49:23.146
Alex Cook: But I only really use it where I’m really passionate about it.

00:49:23.246 –> 00:49:26.186
Alex Cook: I mean, it doesn’t feel like something that I’m constantly referencing.

00:49:27.706 –> 00:49:34.026
Alex Cook: Anyway, I guess long justification for eventually coming back around to instruments.

00:49:34.066 –> 00:49:37.366
Alex Cook: I had a few things happen at the same time.

00:49:37.366 –> 00:49:48.366
Alex Cook: I was working on Jonsi’s album and did a whole album with him called Shiver, which is a really elaborate album that yeah, we went pretty deep into a lot of different techniques.

00:49:48.366 –> 00:49:55.906
Alex Cook: I think he approached me because he didn’t want it to sound like a Sigur Rós album or anything, but also I didn’t want him to fully abandon that world.

00:49:55.906 –> 00:50:10.446
Alex Cook: So it really became this fusion of some live instrumentation and some very high-tech, other kind of synthesis and then also using analog synths and all these using a whole bunch of devices that we honed in on.

00:50:10.446 –> 00:50:12.426
Alex Cook: So that was one experience.

00:50:12.426 –> 00:50:22.066
Alex Cook: I was doing that in parallel to working on the Charli self-titled album, which had stuff like Gone and other things on it, that I think start to use a few different tools.

00:50:22.066 –> 00:50:25.846
Alex Cook: So after the mixtapes, but kind of still working on things.

00:50:25.846 –> 00:50:39.926
Alex Cook: I’ve also been with my girlfriend, Alaska, for a while now and since then, and she is a proper guitarist, a very good singer and her guitar technique is to use lots of different tunings basically.

00:50:39.926 –> 00:50:41.406
Alex Cook: I mean, a lot of tunings.

00:50:41.406 –> 00:50:43.846
Alex Cook: She has a whole book and I think she’s memorized all of them anyway.

00:50:43.846 –> 00:50:46.086
Alex Cook: I’m talking like 40 tunings or something like.

00:50:46.546 –> 00:50:55.066
Alex Cook: So I went from not having any guitars available to constantly having guitars at hand but they would all be in mystery tunings.

00:50:55.066 –> 00:51:05.786
Alex Cook: So I’d pick them up and just sort of figure it out and that was really, really fun to write whole songs and still have some of the technique that I would have had.

00:51:05.786 –> 00:51:16.466
Alex Cook: But to have to go back to square zero and it meant I couldn’t remember that sort of Strokes chord or Hendrix lick or whatever it was that I once knew.

00:51:16.466 –> 00:51:21.706
Alex Cook: And I had to really approach it as a listener, hearing the texture, hearing the notes, all these other things.

00:51:21.706 –> 00:51:30.186
Alex Cook: And then I started to cotton on to certain tunings and a lot of the 7G songs are in one of Alaska’s tunings where it has a kind of D sharp thrown in it.

00:51:30.186 –> 00:51:33.466
Alex Cook: So it creates this like constant tension in it.

00:51:33.466 –> 00:51:44.486
Alex Cook: So yeah, so all that the Jonsi album being around Alaska and her guitars and also at that point having established a bunch of Charli albums and mixtapes where I was willing to take those risks.

00:51:44.486 –> 00:51:47.786
Alex Cook: I was looking for other kind of full circle things to happen.

00:51:47.786 –> 00:51:50.786
Alex Cook: So all of those things happened kind of in one year.

00:51:50.786 –> 00:51:56.286
Alex Cook: And it just took me out of my comfort zone, which is all I’m looking for when I’m messing around with computers anyway.

00:51:56.286 –> 00:52:00.586
Alex Cook: So, but I still do take a very focused view on it, you know?

00:52:00.606 –> 00:52:13.366
Alex Cook: And yeah, I guess back to Serenade, I actually just got a very specific guitar, probably my first proper guitar that wasn’t just one of Alaska’s kind of cool guitars.

00:52:13.366 –> 00:52:22.346
Alex Cook: And I, I basically had this really specific discount from Fender, but it was like 49 or 48.5 percent or something weird.

00:52:22.346 –> 00:52:25.026
Alex Cook: And I was like looking for a specific one and they just didn’t have it.

00:52:25.026 –> 00:52:31.326
Alex Cook: So I ended up just getting a really strange guitar, basically the most expensive one I could get with a discount.

00:52:31.326 –> 00:52:35.326
Alex Cook: But it was a Floyd Rose, so it means it locked pickups, but a Telecaster.

00:52:35.326 –> 00:52:43.906
Alex Cook: So I had this sort of whammy kind of setup that you’d normally have in like Van Halen or Steve Vai, but onto this very like vintage Telecaster.

00:52:43.906 –> 00:52:50.586
Alex Cook: And that also has a secret switch where the pickups can either be quiet vintage ones or like loud metal humbuckers.

00:52:50.586 –> 00:52:53.526
Alex Cook: So for me, I was like, OK, this is going to be interesting.

00:52:53.546 –> 00:52:59.666
Alex Cook: Once again, these extremes, I can at a flick of a switch go from like vintage to sort of modern and this sort of weird bending.

00:53:00.406 –> 00:53:06.266
Alex Cook: So I got that guitar around the time of making this and a lot of the other Britpop guitar tracks.

00:53:06.266 –> 00:53:17.906
Alex Cook: And because I suddenly had this guitar that was a little bit unusual, I could play with a different type of clean guitar sound that I think is quite different to what I’m doing in 7G.

00:53:17.906 –> 00:53:25.066
Alex Cook: 7G, I’m almost using the guitar as like a sort of persona or maybe some classic guitar sounds.

00:53:25.106 –> 00:53:32.326
Alex Cook: It would be like an acoustic one or like a sort of heavier rock one or, you know, I kind of go through a few modes.

00:53:32.326 –> 00:53:42.106
Alex Cook: I would say Britpop is a much more consistent and unique guitar aesthetic that comes from me having access to the guitar, doing stuff with pedals in a slightly more informed way.

00:53:42.106 –> 00:53:44.906
Alex Cook: I’m actually barely adding guitar effects in Logic.

00:53:44.906 –> 00:53:59.606
Alex Cook: I’m doing as much as I can with guitar pedals, recording DI, no amp, just being almost treating the guitar as I would a very simple synth sound that I’m gradually making edits to.

00:53:59.606 –> 00:54:11.226
Alex Cook: So actually if I isolate, there’s a few interlocking parts, but I think if I just solo all of the bits, you’ll hear there’s a lot of very specific things I’m playing that are almost just cut off.

00:54:17.655 –> 00:54:20.115
Alex Cook: So I’m just playing these one bits, and if I play the bit underneath it…

00:54:28.580 –> 00:54:30.960
Alex Cook: I’ve got the more chord ones under it.

00:54:33.660 –> 00:54:36.260
Alex Cook: And even the chords are very specifically played.

00:54:40.480 –> 00:54:45.400
Alex Cook: Because actually the other thing with this guitar is it, on that humbucker mode, it can be perfectly silent as well.

00:54:45.400 –> 00:54:48.000
Alex Cook: So I could really control the silences.

00:54:48.000 –> 00:54:54.280
Alex Cook: And obviously that’s always something you can exaggerate in how you produce it, but it was fun to play it like that, you know, is have these kind of…

00:54:57.880 –> 00:55:01.580
Alex Cook: And then because I’ve got that sort of aesthetic happening, I’ve then, if…

00:55:01.580 –> 00:55:10.480
Alex Cook: Let’s listen to the synths with just one of those parts, you’ll hear I’m then peppering it with very specific synths that in my mind are related to that sort of tone.

00:55:10.740 –> 00:55:10.800
John Kennedy: So…

00:55:25.398 –> 00:55:31.178
John Kennedy: So, are you just playing along, or do you loop things, or do you plan it out?

00:55:31.178 –> 00:55:36.978
Alex Cook: I think for the little guitar bits, they’re probably improvised, and then I’m just picking ones.

00:55:36.978 –> 00:55:41.658
Alex Cook: I think I would have written the actual chord sequence separately, and that would have felt good.

00:55:41.658 –> 00:55:51.258
Alex Cook: And in the synths, I’m once again, just like clicking in, and really, I probably did that after the other parts, so they’re really responding to, they’re kind of fitting in between.

00:55:51.258 –> 00:55:56.198
Alex Cook: And you can hear some of the guitar parts, is it this one?

00:55:59.498 –> 00:56:06.158
Alex Cook: So that’s got some of the sort of bend that I can do with a lot more control because of that sort of Steve Vai type Floyd Rose.

00:56:06.158 –> 00:56:07.238
Alex Cook: Is this one pitched up?

00:56:07.238 –> 00:56:08.458
Alex Cook: I’m not sure.

00:56:11.438 –> 00:56:14.838
Alex Cook: It also has a certain clickiness, some of the pickups you can see.

00:56:14.838 –> 00:56:15.618
Alex Cook: Is it maybe this one?

00:56:15.618 –> 00:56:17.018
Alex Cook: You’ll hear it.

00:56:19.638 –> 00:56:20.638
Alex Cook: Yeah, like that little click.

00:56:20.878 –> 00:56:21.558
Alex Cook: That’s just me.

00:56:21.558 –> 00:56:23.978
Alex Cook: That’s my pick on the pickup.

00:56:23.978 –> 00:56:28.018
Alex Cook: There’s also a section later, we have these really high pitched.

00:56:35.020 –> 00:56:39.160
Alex Cook: And that only happens once in the song, even though it’s quite a distinctive part of it.

00:56:39.160 –> 00:56:43.760
Alex Cook: That’s me using a pedal again, that’s the Pitchfork pedal, Electroharmonix.

00:56:43.760 –> 00:56:53.500
Alex Cook: And I think it’s a distillation of the Whammy pedal, that is a sort of a Raging It’s a Machine sound, right?

00:56:53.500 –> 00:57:02.500
Alex Cook: Where it’s got this grain from like, it’s because it’s digital, but it’s early digital, so it’s not pitching it up perfectly, it’s got this kind of sound.

00:57:03.880 –> 00:57:12.280
Alex Cook: And that’s sort of actually what I’m referencing in Heartache as well in that one breakdown, I was like, oh, I pitch it up and down and up and down to get that, that alias-y crunch.

00:57:12.280 –> 00:57:37.820
Alex Cook: So it was nice to get to arrive at that kind of sound that’s clean, but alias-y, but just using, yeah, not even using logic and just doing it all on pedals and playing it over these other things and making it very, you know, another thing I’ll do in a lot of tracks is that one you can hear, and it’s pretty basic, but there’s a left one, there’s a left one doing one version of it where I’m sort of bending in and out, and then the right one has the kind of more.

00:57:43.190 –> 00:57:47.970
Alex Cook: And you can hear the struggle to have it that octave, but it’s just a…

00:57:49.170 –> 00:57:54.750
Alex Cook: But yeah, that philosophy reminds me of some of the things I’m doing in the synths and on synths on other tracks.

00:57:54.750 –> 00:57:58.110
Alex Cook: So I think that’s why this track felt quite important to me.

00:57:58.110 –> 00:58:11.370
Alex Cook: And why it’s a bit less of a song than some of the other Disc 2 ones, because it was more like, oh, I’ve maybe found a guitar approach that I can really get lost in as a sort of A.

00:58:11.370 –> 00:58:11.570
Alex Cook: G.

00:58:11.570 –> 00:58:16.970
Alex Cook: Cook sound, rather than wearing the mask of some other kind of genre, maybe.

00:58:16.970 –> 00:58:17.230
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:58:17.230 –> 00:58:26.590
John Kennedy: It’s really interesting how you’ve transferred to a physical instrument and yet really, you’re approaching it with the same mindset that has created your world.

00:58:26.590 –> 00:58:32.490
John Kennedy: So you’re playing around with it to reach those extremes of sound that you’re interested in.

00:58:32.490 –> 00:58:32.750
Alex Cook: Yeah.

00:58:32.750 –> 00:58:41.670
Alex Cook: And also, once again, it’s like showcasing that I’m enjoying doing the things that I couldn’t easily do on a synth, so the bending being a bit more out of control.

00:58:41.830 –> 00:58:46.950
Alex Cook: Of course, I can pitch bend stuff, but it wouldn’t have that sort of looseness or is it sliding?

00:58:46.950 –> 00:58:47.590
Alex Cook: Is it bending?

00:58:47.590 –> 00:58:48.710
Alex Cook: Is it sort of hammer on?

00:58:48.710 –> 00:58:49.610
Alex Cook: Is it harmonic?

00:58:49.610 –> 00:58:50.830
Alex Cook: Is it pitched up?

00:58:50.830 –> 00:59:02.590
Alex Cook: Those kind of almost acoustic kind of physics questions that subliminally are kind of being processed when you hear someone play guitar versus all the similar ways that are arriving to that with the synth.

00:59:02.830 –> 00:59:07.290
Alex Cook: So, yeah, I think so the big switch up happens.

00:59:07.290 –> 00:59:10.130
Alex Cook: There’s a sort of verse, one off chorus and then verse.

00:59:10.130 –> 00:59:14.470
Alex Cook: And then it just becomes other kind of track that’s related.

00:59:22.188 –> 00:59:42.248
Alex Cook: So, that core part, once again, it’s not me doing a kind of arpeggiator, I’m just clicking in the MIDI to create this very specific pattern that is still the same chords as the first part, but fleshing it out with all these internal melodies.

00:59:42.248 –> 00:59:52.508
Alex Cook: And so, this is actually just me sampling one of my palm muted notes, or something, so, you know, it’s very, very lo-fi.

00:59:52.768 –> 00:59:54.348
Alex Cook: So, that’s just me putting it into the logic sample.

00:59:54.348 –> 00:59:57.008
Alex Cook: It’s one note, and then, okay, I flesh it out.

00:59:57.008 –> 01:00:05.468
Alex Cook: And one of my favorite things to do when I have a pattern like that is to pick out certain notes, and…

01:00:09.368 –> 01:00:11.348
Alex Cook: So, this is still sort of monophonic.

01:00:14.188 –> 01:00:19.088
Alex Cook: But because the other one has an echo on it, you’re starting to hear chords out of the melodies as well.

01:00:20.128 –> 01:00:25.668
Alex Cook: And that sort of brings me back into what I was talking about, a sort of slightly emotional suspension world.

01:00:26.608 –> 01:00:36.128
Alex Cook: And then the other thing that happens is I do this synth, much more classic sort of saw wave.

01:00:36.128 –> 01:00:37.948
Alex Cook: I think that’s a spy one as well.

01:00:38.128 –> 01:00:39.248
Alex Cook: The filter’s opening up.

01:00:39.248 –> 01:00:45.248
Alex Cook: It’s all very classic, but it’s woven into this slightly more complex.

01:00:45.488 –> 01:00:49.348
Alex Cook: And you can hear I’ve still got some of those little bits from earlier.

01:00:50.508 –> 01:00:51.608
Alex Cook: Kind of…

01:00:54.768 –> 01:00:57.928
Alex Cook: But now they’re working with the other kind of material.

01:01:01.068 –> 01:01:05.088
John Kennedy: Do you edit the MIDI much or do you try to humanize it?

01:01:05.088 –> 01:01:11.228
Alex Cook: Well, when I’m clicking in something like this, I just want it to be, you know, like clockwork.

01:01:11.228 –> 01:01:19.888
Alex Cook: So there’s other times when I’ll mess with velocity in doing certain things that sound a bit human, but this is the thread of the track that’s like not humanized.

01:01:19.888 –> 01:01:25.248
Alex Cook: You know, it’s this sort of motor in it after the other stuff, you know, because I’m not tidying up.

01:01:25.248 –> 01:01:27.188
Alex Cook: I’m not quantizing my guitar playing.

01:01:27.188 –> 01:01:32.248
Alex Cook: Sometimes I’m chopping it up a little bit, but I’m not trying to.

01:01:32.708 –> 01:01:40.548
Alex Cook: I’ll lean into the kind of offness if it’s there, but then I want it in a track like this.

01:01:40.588 –> 01:01:43.788
Alex Cook: I’ll have it go up right against something that’s tighter.

01:01:43.848 –> 01:01:48.308
Alex Cook: But that’s also, I’m a bit loose with the echo, you know, like that stuff, right?

01:01:51.288 –> 01:01:53.628
Alex Cook: You know, I’m not using a super clean digital.

01:01:53.628 –> 01:01:56.008
Alex Cook: It’s kind of just sort of in there.

01:01:56.088 –> 01:01:58.308
Alex Cook: And I’ll also still add more and more bits.

01:01:58.308 –> 01:02:00.808
Alex Cook: So by the end, you’ve got this other counter melody.

01:02:04.928 –> 01:02:12.388
Alex Cook: You know, it’s obsessively making more chord gestures out of what are these one line sort of parts.

01:02:12.688 –> 01:02:18.848
Alex Cook: And even at the end, you know, it’s just I make a little bit lo-fi, stretching the audio.

01:02:22.248 –> 01:02:30.008
Alex Cook: So I’m flanging it, but it’s once again that nasty logic stretch algorithm that I do with the Heartache vocal as well.

01:02:30.008 –> 01:02:38.568
Alex Cook: So this switch between hi-fi, lo-fi and, you know, milking that for what it is, in a sense, is quite a big part.

01:02:38.568 –> 01:02:40.248
John Kennedy: Had you done a demo for this song?

01:02:40.328 –> 01:02:43.968
John Kennedy: I mean, would there have been a demo of you just singing and playing guitar?

01:02:43.968 –> 01:02:44.988
Alex Cook: No, I haven’t got that.

01:02:44.988 –> 01:02:45.588
Alex Cook: Not for this one.

01:02:45.588 –> 01:02:46.748
Alex Cook: There are some like that.

01:02:46.748 –> 01:02:48.628
Alex Cook: Well, I have voice notes of this one.

01:02:48.628 –> 01:02:50.648
Alex Cook: The demo I do have for this.

01:02:50.648 –> 01:02:56.328
Alex Cook: It’s more as interesting as of how similar it is to my sort of Apple Source version of the, you know.

01:03:11.553 –> 01:03:13.053
John Kennedy: So, that’s the demo.

01:03:13.053 –> 01:03:13.793
Alex Cook: Very similar.

01:03:19.533 –> 01:03:25.953
Alex Cook: It was really just me figuring out vocal and lyric stuff that I’d get around to, but all this stuff’s in there.

01:03:25.953 –> 01:03:35.873
Alex Cook: I think that’s also maybe why it fits on the Disc 2 present, because actually a lot of those decisions, you know, the 606 drum as well, it’s just like rattling through.

01:03:38.153 –> 01:03:44.153
Alex Cook: It’s all just the decisions I was doing to kind of come up with the material and I didn’t do a lot of tweaking really.

01:03:44.153 –> 01:03:51.193
Alex Cook: So yeah, that’s also very much just like in the flow of whatever, you know, that is the drum pattern that I played the guitar over.

01:03:51.633 –> 01:03:57.393
Alex Cook: You know, it sounds like it’s something you just write to, but no, that just becomes it really.

01:03:57.393 –> 01:04:04.013
Alex Cook: And yeah, there’s some fairly subtle stuff I tried to do with the vocals, but nothing, nothing crazy interesting.

01:04:04.013 –> 01:04:07.173
Alex Cook: It’s more just, you know, the first time you hear it.

01:04:13.165 –> 01:04:15.045
Alex Cook: It has this very soft…

01:04:15.045 –> 01:04:17.865
Alex Cook: There’s a sort of funny relation between the first, second verse.

01:04:17.865 –> 01:04:21.545
Alex Cook: I actually separate out the breaths, which I don’t always do.

01:04:21.545 –> 01:04:24.925
Alex Cook: I think to go with the ASMR-ness of the guitar.

01:04:26.125 –> 01:04:31.625
Alex Cook: So all the breaths, I think, have some light sample delay on it to make it slightly more three-dimensional.

01:04:31.625 –> 01:04:37.205
Alex Cook: But then when it comes back in the next one, I actually put an echo on those breaths.

01:04:37.205 –> 01:04:38.745
Alex Cook: So suddenly it’s this kind of…

01:04:41.165 –> 01:04:44.565
Alex Cook: So it becomes part of the texture where there’s so few drums.

01:04:45.725 –> 01:04:48.085
Alex Cook: I think the second verse, I’m also messing with the pitch a bit.

01:04:48.085 –> 01:04:49.325
Alex Cook: You can hear…

01:04:54.265 –> 01:04:58.145
John Kennedy: And is that a technique that you’ve tried out on other people or with other people?

01:04:58.145 –> 01:04:58.865
Alex Cook: Oh, yeah.

01:04:58.865 –> 01:04:59.105
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:04:59.105 –> 01:05:03.565
Alex Cook: I mean, I try and make my vocal editing pretty obvious.

01:05:03.565 –> 01:05:06.725
Alex Cook: I mean, I work with a lot of people who are really good vocalists, honestly.

01:05:07.545 –> 01:05:14.125
Alex Cook: So, you know, I’m really interested in people who have these unique voices.

01:05:14.125 –> 01:05:17.425
Alex Cook: You know, I think Charli, unprocessed as well.

01:05:17.425 –> 01:05:20.885
Alex Cook: I mean, it’s such a unique voice.

01:05:20.885 –> 01:05:22.865
Alex Cook: Alaska is also a really, really good singer.

01:05:23.985 –> 01:05:26.305
Alex Cook: I work with her friend Dylan Frazier as well a lot.

01:05:26.305 –> 01:05:27.505
Alex Cook: He’s also another…

01:05:27.505 –> 01:05:30.945
Alex Cook: Really, Tommy Cash, even someone I’ve done a bunch of stuff with.

01:05:30.945 –> 01:05:32.825
Alex Cook: So it’s kind of my favorite thing to do.

01:05:32.825 –> 01:05:42.225
Alex Cook: If someone’s already got an interesting voice, I will sometimes throw a bunch of effects, but other times just sort of let it be quite raw and constantly mess with that tension.

01:05:42.225 –> 01:05:50.665
Alex Cook: Even with Caroline sort of getting at it, sometimes sing in a more like rocky way and having it filtered down because it’s that tension of someone such a powerful voice against something small.

01:05:50.665 –> 01:05:56.005
Alex Cook: I think with me, I’m not a huge fan of my own voice, like podcast aside.

01:05:56.005 –> 01:05:58.345
Alex Cook: I just mean like when it’s…

01:05:58.465 –> 01:06:02.005
Alex Cook: I found a way to get into it, but I think it took me a while.

01:06:02.145 –> 01:06:08.065
Alex Cook: And I had a song a long time ago called Superstar, which became a sort of this is before I had any album.

01:06:08.065 –> 01:06:14.325
Alex Cook: So I only had two tracks on Spotify for a long time, one called Beautiful where I’m like pitched up and then someone else, my friend Ellen is singing.

01:06:14.325 –> 01:06:20.605
Alex Cook: And then the other track, Superstar was sort of this ballad where suddenly my vocals are awkwardly front and center.

01:06:20.605 –> 01:06:32.865
Alex Cook: And I’d already performed that song a bunch and it would, as a reference, DJing and suddenly I’d walk up to an upright piano and sing this kind of borderline Elton John meets EDM moment.

01:06:32.865 –> 01:06:45.765
Alex Cook: And that was once again almost doubling down on the awkwardness of my kind of vocals on not being this kind of incredible vocalist, but also having a bit of my own tone and a bit of my own style.

01:06:45.765 –> 01:06:57.745
Alex Cook: And so I think this one has more vocal effects than some of the other tracks simply because I’m really weaving it into this tapestry of all these very micro guitar and synth parts.

01:06:57.745 –> 01:07:00.525
Alex Cook: So it’s fun for me to mess with those pitches.

01:07:00.525 –> 01:07:10.465
Alex Cook: And even in the chorus, let’s see, I try not to use like harmonizer and things all the time because I think that’s a bit of a easy escape for someone like me.

01:07:11.365 –> 01:07:13.865
Alex Cook: But, you know, here I have a few layers where…

01:07:23.685 –> 01:07:27.245
Alex Cook: You know, so I’m messing with a bit of call and response.

01:07:27.245 –> 01:07:32.665
Alex Cook: And I like always having these countermelodies or little chops, like the one in the middle of that one.

01:07:32.665 –> 01:07:41.365
Alex Cook: So I think that’s what I try and maybe highlight with my vocals, less so much editing and production, but more tapping into how I’m actually writing, you know.

01:07:41.385 –> 01:07:46.905
Alex Cook: I am always thinking these little countermelodies or other things and voice instrument, etc.

01:07:46.905 –> 01:07:55.285
Alex Cook: So I sort of like to acknowledge that and make it maybe slightly more fiddly than I would if it was a singer that I really respected.

01:07:55.285 –> 01:07:56.005
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:07:56.005 –> 01:08:00.345
Alex Cook: And once again, I think producer as vocalist, you know, it’s a whole thing in itself.

01:08:00.345 –> 01:08:01.165
Alex Cook: I think it’s really interesting.

01:08:01.165 –> 01:08:10.805
Alex Cook: I think more people, even though he’s having smartphones and being able to mess with their voice and record things, like we’re all, we all recorded or heard our voice in different ways.

01:08:10.805 –> 01:08:14.465
Alex Cook: So that’s sometimes a perspective of my kind of songwriting.

01:08:14.465 –> 01:08:24.165
Alex Cook: It’s like, it’s someone recording themselves, not just in a DIY way, but where the expression could be in the production and the filtering.

01:08:24.165 –> 01:08:30.905
Alex Cook: Sometimes I’ll make my voice, sorry, if I make it really filtered, other times I’ll just have it like too loud in the mix almost.

01:08:30.905 –> 01:08:35.425
Alex Cook: I’ll sort of dare myself to kind of be a bit self-conscious.

01:08:35.425 –> 01:08:37.145
John Kennedy: Yeah, interesting.

01:08:37.605 –> 01:08:43.385
John Kennedy: And it is interesting because we don’t have time to go through the whole of just two and explore the different ways that you’ve explored that.

01:08:43.385 –> 01:08:43.605
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:08:43.605 –> 01:08:55.325
John Kennedy: But I do suggest people do that because it is really interesting hearing, especially hearing the whole album from start to finish through the three discs as very digestible as it is.

01:08:55.325 –> 01:09:00.245
John Kennedy: It’s really interesting to do that because of these contrasts and the way that you’re exploring your ideas.

01:09:00.245 –> 01:09:02.225
Alex Cook: Yeah, I really am trying to be quite transparent.

01:09:02.225 –> 01:09:06.325
Alex Cook: It’s like I’m not always trying to overload things.

01:09:06.425 –> 01:09:12.905
Alex Cook: I do want there to be distinct elements that then reappear, like characters in a TV show or something.

01:09:13.245 –> 01:09:16.125
Alex Cook: We’re like, oh, this is this person’s game, but now they’re in this situation.

01:09:16.125 –> 01:09:22.385
Alex Cook: I think I want it to have just enough elements, but maybe it’s something with really a lot of characters sometimes and so on.

01:09:22.385 –> 01:09:23.365
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:09:23.365 –> 01:09:32.185
John Kennedy: Before we move on to disc three and the song we’re looking at from there, is there anything else we should hear from Serenade or maybe just round off by playing the end of it?

01:09:32.425 –> 01:09:36.965
Alex Cook: Yeah, I think let’s just play the end because it sort of reaches such a different place.

01:10:37.957 –> 01:10:38.797
John Kennedy: Serenade by A.

01:10:38.797 –> 01:10:38.957
John Kennedy: G.

01:10:38.957 –> 01:10:42.097
John Kennedy: Cook, and the next one we’re going to look at is Lucifer.

01:10:44.457 –> 01:10:46.157
John Kennedy: The next one we’re going to look at from A.

01:10:46.157 –> 01:10:46.357
John Kennedy: G.

01:10:46.357 –> 01:10:53.197
John Kennedy: Cook’s Britpop is from the third disc, the future disc, Alex, and it is called Lucifer.

01:10:53.197 –> 01:10:58.097
John Kennedy: So if we hear a blast of the master, then we can find out where Lucifer comes from.

01:10:58.097 –> 01:10:58.437
Alex Cook: Here you go.

01:11:54.681 –> 01:11:57.481
John Kennedy: So that is just A Little Taste of Lucifer by A.

01:11:57.481 –> 01:11:57.661
John Kennedy: G.

01:11:57.661 –> 01:11:57.901
John Kennedy: Cook.

01:11:57.901 –> 01:12:00.801
John Kennedy: So I guess we need to know who these featured vocalists are then.

01:12:00.801 –> 01:12:04.941
Alex Cook: Yeah, and I guess there’s no official features on the album.

01:12:04.941 –> 01:12:17.681
Alex Cook: I kind of didn’t want to frame it like that, but the chorus is Charli XCX, quite obviously, and less obviously, the verse is a very filtered and slightly abstracted, Addison Rae.

01:12:17.681 –> 01:12:29.121
Alex Cook: But Charli, Addison and I had recently worked together on a remix for Charli, and I’d actually also done a couple other tracks for Addison, all unreleased, just writing, trying out songs.

01:12:29.141 –> 01:12:40.141
Alex Cook: And at the very last minute, I basically always had an empty verse or an unresolved verse, and it was like an outro of something I’d written with Addison.

01:12:40.141 –> 01:12:50.181
Alex Cook: I was like, in my head, I could suddenly hear how it worked perfectly, but I also didn’t want it to sound like a traditional verse, and it was sort of the outro tag of this other song.

01:12:51.221 –> 01:13:13.641
Alex Cook: I guess, okay, if disc one is really about me getting to the headspace of 2013, 2014, when I was very idealistic about making electronic tracks and really having vocal chops and that kind of journey, and disc two is the present that we’ve described in either songwriting or instrumentation and that stuff.

01:13:13.641 –> 01:13:29.881
Alex Cook: Disc three is the most ambiguous and, I guess, not to be too cheesy, but almost like the idea of the multiverse, like anything, the future could be, you know, multiple things at once, or go in any direction, or the sort of butterfly effect or whatever.

01:13:29.881 –> 01:13:37.101
Alex Cook: So I really wanted disc three to just go in all these directions and have this radio dial feeling.

01:13:37.101 –> 01:13:46.441
Alex Cook: It’s you’re jumping from one track to the other and kind of disrupting the sort of cyclical journeys of disc one and two that really hold your hand and take you on a journey.

01:13:46.941 –> 01:13:49.961
Alex Cook: Disc three is just like whatever, you know.

01:13:49.961 –> 01:13:54.801
Alex Cook: So that’s the attitude that already has while I was, you know, sorting tracks.

01:13:54.801 –> 01:14:01.561
Alex Cook: And it’s funny because the beginning of this three starts with the oldest song that was already semi-released or done in the mix called Soulbreaker.

01:14:01.561 –> 01:14:05.541
Alex Cook: And that’s like almost an album that pre-dates Apple, the first album I did in a way.

01:14:06.201 –> 01:14:11.921
Alex Cook: So all these things, yeah, I’m having fun, right, with the chronology.

01:14:11.921 –> 01:14:20.081
Alex Cook: But I think also makes us feel futuristic is how isolated the these different vocals are.

01:14:20.341 –> 01:14:22.901
Alex Cook: They’re really from different times and places.

01:14:22.901 –> 01:14:28.581
Alex Cook: So I think I recorded Charli on hers in early 2020, maybe late 2019.

01:14:28.581 –> 01:14:33.841
Alex Cook: I think I wrote the original bit of this in late 2019.

01:14:33.841 –> 01:14:41.501
Alex Cook: And Charli and I were already talking about, I guess we were sort of making crash, even though this is before how I’m feeling now.

01:14:42.601 –> 01:14:55.081
Alex Cook: So actually we were, I was already thinking about interesting things, not even knowing where they were crash or how many, we didn’t have the tiles really, but whether it was that Charli album or this Charli album, and I was maybe writing probably for 7G as well in the background.

01:14:55.081 –> 01:15:02.801
Alex Cook: And so I had all these parts and then yeah, the Addison vocals technically recorded like really not that long ago.

01:15:02.801 –> 01:15:07.441
Alex Cook: So we’ve already got this sort of four year distance between the two people.

01:15:07.441 –> 01:15:18.521
Alex Cook: And I think by filtering Addison’s vocals, I wanted it to sound like that, like it’s coming some transmission from some other planet, some pop song that could have been or might be or might not.

01:15:18.521 –> 01:15:20.041
Alex Cook: And so, okay, I’ll play.

01:15:20.041 –> 01:15:20.821
Alex Cook: This is funny as well.

01:15:20.821 –> 01:15:30.781
Alex Cook: I found this more recently, because often when I write with Charli, I mean, there’s a lot of ways it can happen, but she’s such a songwriting powerhouse.

01:15:30.781 –> 01:15:34.361
Alex Cook: And I’m not just saying that to be corny or whatever.

01:15:34.361 –> 01:15:53.581
Alex Cook: I mean, it’s very impressive watching her just write on the spot and okay, she’ll sometimes come with ideas, but just it’s so aware and so fully formed that feeling with someone who kind of has that gift, where even if it’s demo-y and whatever, it just feels real.

01:15:53.581 –> 01:15:55.501
Alex Cook: You’re like, this is a song, you know?

01:15:55.501 –> 01:15:59.901
Alex Cook: But occasionally I’ll start something and Charli be like, oh, I like that.

01:15:59.901 –> 01:16:00.641
Alex Cook: I like most of it.

01:16:00.641 –> 01:16:02.881
Alex Cook: Let me just try this and that.

01:16:02.881 –> 01:16:08.001
Alex Cook: And so you’ll hear Lucifer, I think I’d sampled a little bit of something she had done.

01:16:08.001 –> 01:16:10.881
Alex Cook: There’s a little bit of her vocal, but the main stuff.

01:16:10.881 –> 01:16:13.341
John Kennedy: So is this a demo that you’re going to play?

01:16:13.541 –> 01:16:15.481
Alex Cook: Yes, this is 2019.

01:16:15.481 –> 01:16:20.501
Alex Cook: So you’ll hear the same basis of the instrumental, like a more basic version, but then kind of.

01:17:11.535 –> 01:17:17.835
Alex Cook: So, you know, Charlie, I think, was really drawn to the strange, low backing vocals.

01:17:17.835 –> 01:17:28.435
Alex Cook: And we didn’t change the key, because I think she enjoyed somehow being lower than something she would come up with while sort of improvising or writing herself.

01:17:28.472 –> 01:17:30.392
Alex Cook: So, you know, if we hear it back in Charli’s voice.

01:17:48.592 –> 01:17:55.172
Alex Cook: So, you know, she changed a few lyrics and I think just the delivery makes it so much more cohesive.

01:17:55.172 –> 01:18:03.372
Alex Cook: I mean, it’s funny, the lyrics I had, I think they were just, I don’t think I was thinking of anything super specific.

01:18:03.372 –> 01:18:11.552
Alex Cook: It’s sort of strange that it’s like just pre-pandemic as well, because it has this kind of strange hospital feeling.

01:18:11.552 –> 01:18:23.672
Alex Cook: And I think actually, maybe subconsciously I was thinking about times I’ve had to go to hospital for various things, nothing super serious, but it’s also not trying to be like evil or, you know, calling something Lucifer.

01:18:23.672 –> 01:18:32.952
Alex Cook: I’m doing it in a quite lighthearted way, almost a sort of Lucifer is a sort of trickster demon or something or persona.

01:18:32.952 –> 01:18:36.752
Alex Cook: And so I think, yeah, Charli gives out a bit more believability.

01:18:36.752 –> 01:18:43.452
Alex Cook: And also just like I said, it being slightly low in her range and the kind of conviction that she has.

01:18:43.452 –> 01:18:48.112
Alex Cook: We liked it when we recorded it, but once again, you know, it’s I can’t imagine that on crash really.

01:18:48.112 –> 01:18:54.872
Alex Cook: And it could have worked on how I’m feeling now, but we wanted a lot of those tracks to be like of the moment and kind of just happening.

01:18:54.872 –> 01:19:00.832
Alex Cook: So I sort of had this around for ages with her, I’ve seen on it since about 2020.

01:19:00.832 –> 01:19:11.492
Alex Cook: And as I started to think about Disc 3, I sort of had as a front runner, but like that, the verse I play in the demo, you know, it’s all right, but there’s nothing really to say with it.

01:19:11.492 –> 01:19:13.172
Alex Cook: And yes, so if I play the Addison bit.

01:19:30.837 –> 01:19:38.017
Alex Cook: So, it’s a lot of sort of delays on it and it’s pitched down a little bit.

01:19:38.017 –> 01:19:51.497
Alex Cook: I think I used, yeah, I really like this plug-in mix box where, yeah, it’s IK Multimeter, I think, but it’s, you know, it’s like sort of fake little rack mount thing, but you can quickly try different combinations of effects.

01:19:51.497 –> 01:20:02.377
Alex Cook: So, you know, I was messing with the filter, I was messing with the delays and the kind of seeing as I get the threshold just right, so you can pretty much hear every word, but it’s also so buried.

01:20:02.377 –> 01:20:07.917
Alex Cook: And like I said, it’s a sort of transmission from some other reality where maybe the song’s already out.

01:20:07.917 –> 01:20:17.017
Alex Cook: Even the style of it has this kind of Katy Perry, teenage dream flow and it’s very different, but it’s like there’s some familiarity of it.

01:20:17.897 –> 01:20:33.977
Alex Cook: And I also like simply by burying Addison’s vocals so much, that then when Charli’s comes in, it’s so much louder and clearer and it’s doubled and panned and all these other things.

01:20:33.977 –> 01:20:50.777
Alex Cook: I mean, Charli’s voice always sounds pretty upfront anyway, but to really compare it with something that’s kind of like lost in a wormhole, was just a nice thing to try and it immediately clicked me.

01:20:50.777 –> 01:20:54.617
John Kennedy: How do you approach processing and recording vocals?

01:20:54.617 –> 01:21:01.837
John Kennedy: Say you’ve got two different artists there doing different things and obviously the way that you’ve processed them afterwards for the song is different again.

01:21:01.837 –> 01:21:05.957
John Kennedy: But when you’re getting them in the studio with you, is it the same for everybody?

01:21:05.977 –> 01:21:08.117
John Kennedy: Is it different for everybody?

01:21:08.117 –> 01:21:08.957
Alex Cook: It’s a little bit different.

01:21:08.957 –> 01:21:11.997
Alex Cook: Addison’s was done in a studio session.

01:21:12.917 –> 01:21:21.397
Alex Cook: So I think I technically engineered it in the sense that I pressed record or something, but I wasn’t very involved in the chain and it was very much done as a demo.

01:21:21.397 –> 01:21:24.917
Alex Cook: We were not recording final vocals.

01:21:24.917 –> 01:21:30.717
Alex Cook: So it was a decent mic, but with the intention of just testing out the songwriting.

01:21:30.717 –> 01:21:34.537
Alex Cook: Then Charlie’s was done in my garage at the time.

01:21:34.537 –> 01:21:44.077
Alex Cook: So the first place I lived in LA properly and I had this behind the concrete garden as a garage.

01:21:45.837 –> 01:21:50.317
Alex Cook: I’ve recorded Charlie a lot, so I really don’t put much on her voice.

01:21:52.117 –> 01:22:04.937
Alex Cook: When I described my early studio unofficial manifesto where all instruments are banned, the things that weren’t banned were the laptop, speakers and microphone.

01:22:06.117 –> 01:22:13.917
Alex Cook: At that time, I was very conscious to really try and invest in a good mic and good speaker.

01:22:13.917 –> 01:22:16.877
Alex Cook: In the early PC days, I really, I think I used, what’s that classic?

01:22:17.777 –> 01:22:19.777
Alex Cook: Is it Rode something?

01:22:19.777 –> 01:22:27.597
Alex Cook: There’s a starter mic that everyone has that comes in interface, so all the early PC stuff is just done with that.

01:22:27.597 –> 01:22:50.857
Alex Cook: Then I got at the time, I thought it was really expensive, but now it’s massively inflated in price, but I got a second-hand Sony C800G, which is like, I got it for a few thousand pounds via a shop, but now it’s like 15K or something, and it got used, it’s like a bunch of, I think it’s like Post Malone and other rap vocals and a bunch of pop as well.

01:22:50.857 –> 01:23:11.277
Alex Cook: It was known back in the days of Mariah Carey mic, and it’s got this lineage as quite a bright, intense, detailed mic, but because I’ve basically been using the same one of those for not quite a decade, but a really long time, and I’ve sort of tried to carefully travel with it.

01:23:11.277 –> 01:23:13.177
Alex Cook: I’ll just record Charli on that.

01:23:13.177 –> 01:23:14.457
Alex Cook: I’m not even using a compressor.

01:23:14.457 –> 01:23:25.737
Alex Cook: I mean, I’ll use a logic compressor, but I’ll just have a Neve Clone preamp, and it’s pretty dry, and I’m just, the nice thing about that mic is it’s so high-end and it’s so clean as well.

01:23:25.737 –> 01:23:29.757
Alex Cook: You can stack vocals and you don’t really feel the kind of noise of endless stacking.

01:23:29.957 –> 01:23:36.797
Alex Cook: So even I’m not doing a lot of that, but it feels a bit like using a magnifying glass.

01:23:38.237 –> 01:23:43.237
Alex Cook: So Jeff did mix this eventually, but I don’t think the final vocal sound is that different.

01:23:43.477 –> 01:23:54.317
Alex Cook: So yeah, a bunch of funny Charli demos, even if it’s just recording in a garage, will be using a pretty decent mic so that I can capture those and not have to go back and retrack it and blah, blah, blah.

01:23:55.177 –> 01:24:04.977
Alex Cook: But there’s a nice thing you can get with the C-100 II, where you can make quiet vocal takes feel quite upfront and quite in your face, as well as loud ones.

01:24:04.977 –> 01:24:11.117
Alex Cook: It’s not, there’s some mics, so even if they’re really great, you have to kind of go for it to feel it going through.

01:24:11.117 –> 01:24:19.557
Alex Cook: With that, you can actually get away, if you do the gain staging sort of right, a very kind of whispered thing can be right on your ears.

01:24:19.557 –> 01:24:28.737
Alex Cook: So yeah, that’s become a little bit of my very lazy engineering signature, like use a really expensive mic and don’t do much else.

01:24:28.737 –> 01:24:32.577
Alex Cook: But you know, I think it’s paid off for Charli and a few other things.

01:24:32.577 –> 01:24:39.257
Alex Cook: So that’s also the nice contrast there, suddenly she’s using this very intense mic.

01:24:39.257 –> 01:24:41.457
John Kennedy: So what else should we hear in Lucifer?

01:24:41.457 –> 01:24:50.797
Alex Cook: So this session is a little bit more boring because the track was so old, it was like a previous laptop and you know, transferring logic files can be a big hassle.

01:24:50.797 –> 01:24:54.337
Alex Cook: So I basically printed stems of a very rough version.

01:24:54.337 –> 01:24:59.337
Alex Cook: So you can hear there’s, it’s like a, it’s the Arturia DX7 plugin they do.

01:24:59.337 –> 01:25:04.717
Alex Cook: And I’m layering it with Razer, which is a reactor plugin that I used a lot, especially around then.

01:25:04.717 –> 01:25:09.097
Alex Cook: I think it’s the one that I mentioned trying to ban off Brat, even though he didn’t fully ban it.

01:25:09.097 –> 01:25:12.297
Alex Cook: But you know, so this is the DX7 and Razer together.

01:25:18.880 –> 01:25:24.820
Alex Cook: And it’s just kind of, yeah, it’s a little bit lo-fi in a way, you know.

01:25:26.820 –> 01:25:34.700
Alex Cook: And it’s a very weird bass line if you hear it with the, you know, other parts removed, you know, like when you hear it with the…

01:25:39.840 –> 01:25:50.420
Alex Cook: Once again, I mean, all these tracks have had, well, you know, moments of this sort of manual arpeggiator where the arpe is doing a melody that’s kind of leading the chord changes.

01:25:50.420 –> 01:25:59.460
Alex Cook: So hearing it together makes more sense, but it’s a kind of weird, yeah, slightly, it’s got a sort of budget sounding feel to it.

01:25:59.460 –> 01:26:03.820
Alex Cook: And then, you know, later on, I would, I would mess with it a bit more.

01:26:03.820 –> 01:26:10.720
Alex Cook: I actually did the very final sessions of this at my friend Blood Pop Studio in LA.

01:26:11.740 –> 01:26:22.620
Alex Cook: And he just has a whole bunch of synths and I’m often, I mean, now, once again, I am allowing some synthesis in and like, you know, analog stuff, but not always.

01:26:22.620 –> 01:26:35.100
Alex Cook: But this track, I think, especially the future ones, I actually, I wouldn’t really reject anything, you know, I was trying to like not necessarily break my own rules, but just have enough different palettes where there’d be some confusion.

01:26:35.100 –> 01:26:41.180
Alex Cook: So actually in the second chorus, I layer the bass with the bass and a sort of pad.

01:26:41.180 –> 01:26:48.780
Alex Cook: I think this one, once again, to break my rule, I think I’m just manually playing the sort of lead, sort of pad layer.

01:26:48.780 –> 01:26:53.640
Alex Cook: So this is using the Super 6 synth, I think it’s by Udo.

01:26:53.640 –> 01:26:57.660
Alex Cook: It’s kind of an updated Juno that can do all this other stuff.

01:26:57.660 –> 01:26:59.680
Alex Cook: It’s completely different sort of stereo imaging.

01:27:00.740 –> 01:27:02.100
Alex Cook: And this, I think, was quite interesting.

01:27:02.100 –> 01:27:07.200
Alex Cook: It’s the second chord, you have more of this stuff, which sounds like Gary Newman, basically.

01:27:21.477 –> 01:27:26.097
Alex Cook: Yeah, I’m really just messing around, and being like, yep, that’s the one take, I’ll use that.

01:27:26.097 –> 01:27:31.497
Alex Cook: So, that’s another funny thing that I’m sort of working into the track.

01:27:31.497 –> 01:27:38.217
Alex Cook: And so, I think once I started doing that, I just started, I didn’t, it’s like I never deleted anything from the original demo.

01:27:38.217 –> 01:27:45.317
Alex Cook: I had these funny drums in there, kind of awkward amounts of reverb.

01:27:45.317 –> 01:27:49.837
Alex Cook: It’s not like, they’re pretty thin sounding, but they’re still in there the whole time.

01:27:50.497 –> 01:27:53.397
Alex Cook: But I just started to find moments where I’d layer them.

01:27:53.397 –> 01:28:04.077
Alex Cook: There’s this, a very simple plugin that I love called Kick 2 by Sonic Academy, which is a, it’s almost like a learning tool really.

01:28:04.077 –> 01:28:15.257
Alex Cook: But you know, I think it’s great for doing these very aggressive kicks with a sort of, yeah, a lot of, you really hear the note sort of bend in.

01:28:16.437 –> 01:28:22.357
Alex Cook: So it’s a low one, but, whoops, it’s another layer, but let me hear, there’s one later in the track actually.

01:28:22.357 –> 01:28:23.917
Alex Cook: Let me find it.

01:28:25.297 –> 01:28:29.857
Alex Cook: So you have a lot of the clickiness and a lot of the sort of sign tone movement.

01:28:29.857 –> 01:28:35.337
Alex Cook: And it’s like a, you know, so it gets more and more exaggerated.

01:28:35.337 –> 01:28:40.557
Alex Cook: So that’s something that kind of sort of gradually gets fleshed out.

01:28:40.757 –> 01:28:43.237
John Kennedy: Is it possible to hear before and after of that?

01:28:43.237 –> 01:28:44.177
Alex Cook: Yeah, yeah, kind of.

01:28:44.177 –> 01:28:49.477
Alex Cook: I mean, it’s really just, the whole final section of the song is sort of messing with that.

01:28:49.477 –> 01:28:51.377
Alex Cook: But let’s say I can…

01:28:53.337 –> 01:28:55.377
Alex Cook: So here’s it muted.

01:28:55.377 –> 01:28:56.557
Alex Cook: And then it’s sort of back in there.

01:28:56.557 –> 01:28:59.117
Alex Cook: But you can really start to hear it here.

01:29:03.037 –> 01:29:08.117
Alex Cook: I sort of, you know, make a more extreme version of it for the end, really.

01:29:08.117 –> 01:29:09.937
Alex Cook: It’s almost like I think I can’t resist doing that.

01:29:09.937 –> 01:29:13.897
Alex Cook: So the first time it happens in the track, it’s got a functional purpose.

01:29:14.017 –> 01:29:20.537
Alex Cook: I’m filling in the sub, I’m doing, you know, just reinforcing a kick sample that doesn’t really have any weight.

01:29:20.537 –> 01:29:22.797
Alex Cook: And I’m like, well, I’ve already got this tool now.

01:29:22.797 –> 01:29:27.757
Alex Cook: So I’m going to just overuse it to the point where it becomes something that you really notice.

01:29:27.757 –> 01:29:33.077
Alex Cook: And then it becomes a foundation of the track and the kind of slight jammy-ness.

01:29:33.077 –> 01:29:37.197
Alex Cook: There’s another part that happens in the second chorus, which elevate the track for me.

01:29:37.197 –> 01:29:38.397
Alex Cook: It’s just counter melodies.

01:29:46.855 –> 01:29:53.515
Alex Cook: So once again, it has a bit of a Gary Newman feel, but it’s got this fleshing out, kind of colder side of it.

01:29:53.515 –> 01:29:58.155
Alex Cook: And I really love these, it’s another very simple spire sound, so.

01:29:59.775 –> 01:30:05.055
Alex Cook: But the only nice thing is that it has this pitch envelope, very simple.

01:30:05.055 –> 01:30:11.315
Alex Cook: It’s gonna be more extreme, but I have it on a very subtle thing, and I think some light chorus on it.

01:30:11.315 –> 01:30:16.015
Alex Cook: But, you know, that’s already feels very different to just playing with no pitch envelope, you know.

01:30:20.735 –> 01:30:23.335
Alex Cook: So, I like just messing with a little bit of that.

01:30:23.335 –> 01:30:27.215
Alex Cook: So, yeah, that layer sort of turns up at the end of one chorus.

01:30:27.215 –> 01:30:29.335
Alex Cook: It’s quite subtle.

01:30:29.335 –> 01:30:34.415
Alex Cook: It almost really creates new chords out of the art that’s already happening.

01:30:34.415 –> 01:30:38.595
Alex Cook: And, yeah, I left the kind of more raw silence on that click.

01:30:38.595 –> 01:30:47.395
Alex Cook: I did a little bit of that, but I sort of, that was just a note for Jeff, like when Charli says, click, you know, make it kind of all go away.

01:30:47.395 –> 01:30:49.535
Alex Cook: But so I had that little synth part.

01:30:49.535 –> 01:30:56.235
Alex Cook: And then once again, I sort of put it on something else, and then it becomes the only part of the outro for a bit.

01:30:57.515 –> 01:31:05.835
Alex Cook: Except this time it’s on an Arturia sort of vocoder, the vocoder V, which you can also use as synth.

01:31:05.835 –> 01:31:12.535
Alex Cook: And once again, this is I’m doing this a lot on this disc where it’s like, oh, here’s a messy sound now that I’ve done a clean one, you know.

01:31:15.775 –> 01:31:21.635
John Kennedy: And are these actual synth sounds, or are they presets, or are they things you’re designing?

01:31:21.635 –> 01:31:24.015
Alex Cook: With this vocoder one, this is a preset.

01:31:24.015 –> 01:31:28.215
Alex Cook: And once I really like, I don’t use presets that much, but it was a fun.

01:31:28.215 –> 01:31:41.895
Alex Cook: This one just felt like when I described different parts, different characters, it’s like, yeah, let’s like throw this one in just to like offset everything, you know, like it’s playing with a lack of control after having a spire sound that’s quite dialed in.

01:31:41.895 –> 01:31:49.675
Alex Cook: I’m suddenly like, yeah, let’s just put it on a noisy vocoder sound and then see what, you know, the vocal is like with that.

01:31:50.715 –> 01:31:55.635
Alex Cook: You know, I think, yeah, Addison’s stuff is still kind of happening here.

01:31:57.555 –> 01:32:01.895
Alex Cook: But now I’ve sort of over modulated it, so it’s getting kind of gross.

01:32:04.295 –> 01:32:14.755
Alex Cook: And then the Addison vocal towards the end is just completely, I think, that’s just all the same vocal, but, you know, it just becomes a drone.

01:32:14.755 –> 01:32:17.215
Alex Cook: And there’s other little, little games happen at the end.

01:32:17.215 –> 01:32:21.795
Alex Cook: There’s the very raw drum part from earlier.

01:32:21.795 –> 01:32:26.275
Alex Cook: I put it through some pretty outrageous effects.

01:32:26.275 –> 01:32:33.655
Alex Cook: So this is mainly using, I actually love these plugins, but it’s the, well, this one’s called the M-Bit Fun MB.

01:32:33.655 –> 01:32:38.835
Alex Cook: This is not a great name, but I think it’s, yeah, Melder, or Melda Productions.

01:32:38.835 –> 01:32:43.175
Alex Cook: They just do tons of these plugins, all look very similar, but they’re all very specific functions.

01:32:43.175 –> 01:32:50.295
Alex Cook: And this one, it’s not quite a bit crusher, but it’s reducing things to bits and then letting you mess with that.

01:32:50.295 –> 01:32:54.175
Alex Cook: And actually, I’ve also got this filter freak on it, Sound Toys.

01:32:54.175 –> 01:32:56.135
Alex Cook: I actually also don’t use this plugin very often.

01:32:56.135 –> 01:33:03.955
Alex Cook: I think, like I said, the ethos of this was just putting things that work, but that I am just like embracing the chaos.

01:33:04.155 –> 01:33:08.775
Alex Cook: So this is it without the filter, just completely crushed.

01:33:10.595 –> 01:33:13.695
Alex Cook: And then the filter then makes it sort of weirdly soft again.

01:33:13.695 –> 01:33:22.935
Alex Cook: So you have this super aggressive thing at the bottom with this kind of, yeah, quite nice other layer.

01:33:22.935 –> 01:33:28.155
Alex Cook: And then, okay, I’ve got this sort of humming hoovering sound, but that’s a synth plant again, actually.

01:33:28.155 –> 01:33:31.395
Alex Cook: But I think I didn’t even put a real musical reference.

01:33:31.395 –> 01:33:41.055
Alex Cook: I was just messing with like putting noise through it, you know, and so you get these extended half synth, half noise elements.

01:33:41.055 –> 01:33:42.335
Alex Cook: And there’s other things I reference.

01:33:42.335 –> 01:33:46.155
Alex Cook: So the structure is pretty weird after the first chorus has this break.

01:33:48.475 –> 01:33:51.795
Alex Cook: And I have this sort of sweeping, this is done in Spire again.

01:33:51.795 –> 01:33:58.915
Alex Cook: It’s really just a, you know, just noise oscillator, I think with some chorus on it.

01:33:58.915 –> 01:33:59.335
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:33:59.335 –> 01:34:07.395
Alex Cook: It’s just, it literally reminds me of those like vehicles at Heathrow that are just like trying to get through or something, you know.

01:34:07.395 –> 01:34:11.835
Alex Cook: And they have that very generic oscillator sound to let you know.

01:34:12.115 –> 01:34:34.195
Alex Cook: Not that’s even the picture I’m trying to paint, but it’s like, I like just using sometimes these really detailed sounds, these very like raw oscillators, and it kind of pulls you out the song, you know, it’s just like, just no chords, you know, like, and yeah.

01:34:38.315 –> 01:34:39.055
Alex Cook: It’s weird little things.

01:34:39.055 –> 01:34:45.175
Alex Cook: I turn Charli’s Yeah into a sort of hi-hat thing.

01:34:46.515 –> 01:34:54.495
Alex Cook: I think this one was done fairly meticulously where I’m just chopping and changing and sometimes keeping in the little transient of the chop.

01:34:55.975 –> 01:35:12.515
Alex Cook: And there’s a metaflanger on it, which I like because I think the sync mode where it’s sort of reliable every time, you can kind of restrict it and kind of have start to have a pitch tone quality, as well as just feeling like it’s flanging.

01:35:14.075 –> 01:35:18.755
Alex Cook: And this tiny air that kind of brings it back in.

01:35:19.435 –> 01:35:25.195
Alex Cook: So yeah, I think I was just enjoying these lateral ways of using all the parts.

01:35:25.615 –> 01:35:30.195
Alex Cook: I’m trying to think if there’s any other, it’s quite minimal really.

01:35:30.195 –> 01:35:34.175
Alex Cook: So I’m trying to think if there’s any other really unusual stuff in there.

01:35:34.175 –> 01:35:39.515
Alex Cook: But yeah, I think it’s just this combination of super old stems that I bounced myself.

01:35:39.515 –> 01:35:45.315
Alex Cook: And then some layers where I’m just using outboard stuff kind of to mess with it.

01:35:45.495 –> 01:35:52.795
Alex Cook: And then these little effects and this kind of breakdown that’s a bit more kind of IDM feeling.

01:35:53.235 –> 01:35:54.415
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:35:54.415 –> 01:35:58.995
John Kennedy: Maybe we should build up through to the ending, no, through the stems.

01:35:58.995 –> 01:35:59.575
Alex Cook: Yeah, yeah.

01:35:59.575 –> 01:36:00.675
John Kennedy: We can be fun.

01:36:00.675 –> 01:36:00.895
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:36:00.895 –> 01:36:04.375
John Kennedy: You mean just as each element comes in.

01:36:04.375 –> 01:36:05.155
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:36:05.155 –> 01:36:05.535
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:36:05.535 –> 01:36:06.715
Alex Cook: Let’s do the second chorus.

01:36:06.715 –> 01:36:08.035
Alex Cook: I think it’s quite a lot going on.

01:36:08.955 –> 01:36:17.035
Alex Cook: You got this old Arturia DX7 from the first demo with the Razor bass from the first demo.

01:36:17.035 –> 01:36:19.475
Alex Cook: Charlie’s lead.

01:36:19.475 –> 01:36:23.495
Alex Cook: Left and right hardpan doubles.

01:36:23.495 –> 01:36:24.355
Alex Cook: There’s a little ad-lib.

01:36:27.015 –> 01:36:33.635
John Kennedy: There’s in there more ad-libs all doubled.

01:36:33.635 –> 01:36:37.955
Alex Cook: The original sort of strange drum thing.

01:36:37.955 –> 01:36:44.515
Alex Cook: There’s another layer for the like a light clap in there.

01:36:44.515 –> 01:36:50.835
Alex Cook: That’s just another kind of snare layer.

01:36:51.255 –> 01:36:53.535
Alex Cook: The main synth that I think ties it together.

01:36:55.355 –> 01:36:57.795
Alex Cook: Countermelody synth.

01:36:57.795 –> 01:37:03.415
Alex Cook: I’ll loop again and add what I was describing as the Karen Newman, but the super six.

01:37:05.235 –> 01:37:06.855
Alex Cook: And you’ll hear it come in here.

01:37:09.775 –> 01:37:11.955
Alex Cook: Sort of pad that makes it more open.

01:37:11.955 –> 01:37:15.875
Alex Cook: And then just very subtle in this part, the extra kick.

01:37:15.875 –> 01:37:17.555
Alex Cook: Just slightly heavier in this part.

01:37:19.555 –> 01:37:23.155
Alex Cook: Yeah, those are all the parts, I can sort of take them off one by one.

01:37:30.975 –> 01:37:34.515
Alex Cook: Yeah, and then the outro is a bit more linear, really.

01:37:34.515 –> 01:37:35.415
John Kennedy: Fantastic.

01:37:35.415 –> 01:37:37.235
John Kennedy: Really, really interesting.

01:37:37.235 –> 01:37:38.135
John Kennedy: Thank you, Alex.

01:37:38.135 –> 01:37:39.895
John Kennedy: We have some Patreon questions for you.

01:37:39.895 –> 01:37:40.515
Alex Cook: Oh, cool.

01:37:40.515 –> 01:37:41.655
John Kennedy: That have come through.

01:37:41.655 –> 01:37:42.495
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:37:42.495 –> 01:37:45.755
John Kennedy: Though I want to get through as many as possible if we can.

01:37:45.755 –> 01:37:46.595
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:37:46.595 –> 01:37:55.515
John Kennedy: So Max has been in touch saying, at the very beginning of PC Music, were you aware that you were initiating a new aesthetic?

01:37:55.515 –> 01:38:05.375
Alex Cook: I mean, it’s a very sweet notion, but I just think all these, there’s so many influences and there’s a whole sort of family tree of stuff.

01:38:05.375 –> 01:38:20.515
Alex Cook: It’s a sort of, I mean, Dan and I were very excited by the early Hudson-Mohawk demos, and we’ve both worked with him on separate things, part of Brad, and a whole bunch of full circle moments.

01:38:20.815 –> 01:38:29.635
Alex Cook: I was obsessed with a lot of the new Jack Swing stuff, like Jam and Lewis, and those guys, and probably when you were two or three or something.

01:38:29.635 –> 01:38:30.955
Alex Cook: Well, I’m not talking real time.

01:38:30.955 –> 01:38:36.435
Alex Cook: Yeah, no, I know, but I guess what I’m saying with those people too, is that Jam and Lewis are still active in LA.

01:38:37.415 –> 01:38:39.155
Alex Cook: I’ve met them and done a little bit of stuff.

01:38:39.155 –> 01:38:52.615
Alex Cook: And I’m not saying that it’s always about meeting everyone you know and so on, but you know, it’d be the cross-section of meeting people that you’re influenced by and then meeting people through SoundCloud and early internet things and club nights and shows.

01:38:52.615 –> 01:39:02.395
Alex Cook: And I’ve mentioned that for a lot of us, that kind of getting to know, I mean, at least me personally getting to know Sophie before she’d even released the sort of early singles.

01:39:02.395 –> 01:39:05.575
Alex Cook: We kind of heard each other’s stuff at a very early stage.

01:39:05.575 –> 01:39:12.135
Alex Cook: And that’s a really interesting kind of fluke because I feel like we probably would have met eventually, but that is sort of…

01:39:12.375 –> 01:39:13.535
John Kennedy: How did that happen?

01:39:13.575 –> 01:39:26.615
Alex Cook: I just SoundCloud messaged her or found the email address on a SoundCloud when there were just like clips of demos and it’s like, oh, can you, you know, I like your stuff, but you know, I have a friend’s magazine, it’d be great if you did a mix or something.

01:39:26.615 –> 01:39:30.255
Alex Cook: And then I had my little link of the music I was making with Dan at the time.

01:39:30.255 –> 01:39:31.935
Alex Cook: And she just ignored the whole mix request.

01:39:31.935 –> 01:39:41.715
Alex Cook: But I was like, wait, this track that you guys did, this party on my own, this sort of thing where we had, we were recording sort of friends of friends and kids.

01:39:41.715 –> 01:39:46.355
Alex Cook: And so we had these poppy tracks just up there.

01:39:46.355 –> 01:39:47.955
Alex Cook: So if you was like, I want to remix this.

01:39:47.955 –> 01:39:51.495
Alex Cook: And then we realized that we all lived not too far from each other.

01:39:51.495 –> 01:39:55.915
Alex Cook: Or her studio is in Camden, like a few minutes away from where Dan was living at the time.

01:39:55.915 –> 01:40:00.075
Alex Cook: So we just, that just kind of early message ended up being like, oh, we’re around the corner.

01:40:00.075 –> 01:40:02.755
Alex Cook: Let’s just hang, you know, funny things like that.

01:40:02.755 –> 01:40:15.175
Alex Cook: Anyway, I just, just to say that I feel like I have so many influences and I’ve often tried to make the effort to really understand and get to know them and almost as personalities as well, you know.

01:40:15.175 –> 01:40:30.155
Alex Cook: So, and then, you know, there’s people like Dylan Lora, 100 Gecs and stuff where we were also in touch a while back, but they’ve also been vocal about how some of early mixes I did and other friends of mine did were direct influences and so on.

01:40:30.155 –> 01:40:32.435
Alex Cook: And then we’ve also collaborated as peers and so on.

01:40:32.435 –> 01:40:35.875
Alex Cook: So I think it’s just, yeah, it’s part of a long chain of things.

01:40:35.995 –> 01:40:42.395
Alex Cook: I think if anything, I can at least maybe take credit for really trying to round people up.

01:40:42.395 –> 01:40:52.755
Alex Cook: You know, I think PC Music as a scene, I think was maybe inevitable, but me really putting an umbrella and putting a wider platform.

01:40:52.755 –> 01:41:02.675
Alex Cook: And I think having the confidence in me and my friends to really, and not just friends, but people I would meet through all that, but feeling like this isn’t just something that’s just a couple of people.

01:41:02.795 –> 01:41:06.555
Alex Cook: This is like a lot of people doing a certain kind of attitude.

01:41:06.555 –> 01:41:07.675
Alex Cook: I think it’s beyond an aesthetic.

01:41:07.675 –> 01:41:15.355
Alex Cook: I think there is, it’s more of a psychology and attitude and a kind of feeling rather than it just being like, oh, metallic drums, sped up vocals, all that stuff.

01:41:15.355 –> 01:41:19.975
Alex Cook: Like there’s elements of that, but I think the real connective tissue is this other thing.

01:41:19.975 –> 01:41:35.535
Alex Cook: And I think, yeah, I just had this gut feeling that it would be, that we could all do our own thing, but presenting it to the world as this like actual tangible platform would actually, as you say, make it digestible, I guess.

01:41:35.535 –> 01:41:50.255
Alex Cook: And then, you know, Sophie and Charli working together and us all doing stuff with Charli and that, you know, having someone where she was also be a supporter and then collaborator, you know, it’s really just always, I think, having the confidence to double down on that kind of thing.

01:41:50.255 –> 01:42:14.555
Alex Cook: So I don’t know if it’s a truly new aesthetic or it’s part of so many things, but I would, even though I think it’s such a different version of the Internet now, but simply, you know, finding like-minded people rather than feeling that you’re going to have to, you know, invent new aesthetic on your own shoulders or whatever, you know, I think that’s a bit of a fool’s errand in a way.

01:42:14.555 –> 01:42:20.915
Alex Cook: But all those real movements always come from multiple people and angles and perspectives and personalities.

01:42:20.915 –> 01:42:32.595
Alex Cook: So I think that’s, I think it’s maybe my willingness to engage with that, that has then led it to go a bit further than it would rather than me having an actual, you know, unbelievable vision of anything.

01:42:32.595 –> 01:42:34.675
John Kennedy: Yeah, very interesting.

01:42:34.675 –> 01:42:41.635
John Kennedy: Unspoken, a mysterious name, Unspoken asks, I’m stoked for this episode as I’m a huge fan of A.G.’s productions.

01:42:41.635 –> 01:42:44.515
John Kennedy: How does AG overcome creative block?

01:42:44.515 –> 01:42:48.915
John Kennedy: Has the way in which he works and develops ideas changed over the years?

01:42:48.915 –> 01:42:50.315
Alex Cook: Yeah, I don’t think it’s changed that much.

01:42:50.315 –> 01:42:56.355
Alex Cook: It’s funny when I look at the kind of rare early interviews, I have so many of the same touchstones.

01:42:57.095 –> 01:43:00.735
Alex Cook: The big shift for me, I think I’ve covered some of this already.

01:43:00.735 –> 01:43:14.155
Alex Cook: Like I mentioned, it was sort of lapped off only, and then now I’m sort of embracing these curveball approaches while still using the kind of computers, the kind of central brain and the MIDI piano roll and all that.

01:43:14.175 –> 01:43:24.435
Alex Cook: I try to just avoid creative block by just working on very different stuff when I can, diving into different forms.

01:43:25.515 –> 01:43:55.855
Alex Cook: I think more recently, especially this year, where I’ve really finished a lot of music between Britpop and Brat and a few other things, I think genuinely having time to switch off, and not just IRL time, because it’s all real in a sense, but I just really mean sometimes if you haven’t worked on music for a while, you really are full of ideas and you just want to do something, and that’s a great headspace to write from.

01:43:55.855 –> 01:44:01.655
Alex Cook: Where you just have to get it down and not worry about the technique that much.

01:44:01.655 –> 01:44:05.815
Alex Cook: It’s sometimes nice just drifting away from music for a bit, just so I can get back into that.

01:44:05.815 –> 01:44:20.815
Alex Cook: Especially, I’ve been really for finishing, especially for other artists, you might run into a real technical thing or working with a lot of collaborators and tons of stems, and that’s when it can occasionally really feel like work, even though I enjoy a lot of it.

01:44:20.975 –> 01:44:28.555
Alex Cook: But I think to then take a break from that and do something with completely different rules is just fun.

01:44:28.555 –> 01:44:31.295
Alex Cook: But I’m very naturally like that.

01:44:31.295 –> 01:44:37.895
Alex Cook: Even when I’m reading books or fiction, I’ll read more than one book at once, and just move between them and gradually finish.

01:44:37.895 –> 01:44:47.635
Alex Cook: The ones that are interesting and park others, and I like just episodically moving between things and other avenues really.

01:44:47.975 –> 01:44:55.795
Alex Cook: But yeah, I think definitely don’t worry about perfectionism, at least for me.

01:44:55.795 –> 01:45:06.575
Alex Cook: I would rather do many of the same attempt at something and delete some of them, forget others, and then on one random day, like nail it and make the perfect version of that.

01:45:06.575 –> 01:45:13.315
Alex Cook: For me, that’s much more achievable than toiling away at one thing and tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it to make it perfect.

01:45:13.315 –> 01:45:21.115
Alex Cook: At least for my brain, do a hundred shit things and one thing will be okay rather than like polishing something that’s okay until it’s amazing.

01:45:21.115 –> 01:45:23.835
Alex Cook: I can’t, that’s my maybe real advice.

01:45:23.835 –> 01:45:24.755
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:45:24.755 –> 01:45:27.735
John Kennedy: Tommy Taylor says, what plugins have defined A.

01:45:27.735 –> 01:45:29.055
John Kennedy: G.’s career?

01:45:30.595 –> 01:45:34.735
Alex Cook: I think early days, Spire, I used a lot of that.

01:45:34.735 –> 01:45:40.455
Alex Cook: It’s a very down the line subtractive synth plugin.

01:45:40.455 –> 01:45:46.775
Alex Cook: It’s not miles away from Silent, which I haven’t used and there’s a bunch of things that you have these.

01:45:46.775 –> 01:45:48.155
Alex Cook: All oscillators filters.

01:45:48.235 –> 01:45:58.515
Alex Cook: I mean, Spire has a few, back when I used presets a lot more, there’s some pretty distinctive ones that are pretty fun, plucks or super sores and stuff like that.

01:45:58.515 –> 01:46:02.095
Alex Cook: So I think that defined all my early stuff and maybe understand some real basics.

01:46:02.095 –> 01:46:10.335
Alex Cook: It has a bit of this tone like it’s got this quite aggressive detune, it’s got this nice chorus and it’s very particular reverb.

01:46:10.435 –> 01:46:14.515
Alex Cook: So it’s got this kind of Euro aesthetic that can be quite cold for some people.

01:46:14.515 –> 01:46:17.275
Alex Cook: It’s not trying to be like deeply analogue, you know.

01:46:17.275 –> 01:46:23.175
Alex Cook: So I think that’s one thing that inspired some of that early, maybe Euro synth sound within PC for sure.

01:46:23.175 –> 01:46:29.995
Alex Cook: Then getting into reactor in general, but Razer made by Aerosmith was a big part of I would say the Charli mixtapes.

01:46:29.995 –> 01:46:34.215
Alex Cook: And I mean, Sophie showed me that plugin and she used it in really cool ways.

01:46:34.215 –> 01:46:44.175
Alex Cook: And you can really, because it’s additive, but disguised as subtractive, which for I mean, synth heads will get a lot out of it in general.

01:46:44.175 –> 01:46:52.975
Alex Cook: But basically by additive synthesis, you’re adding layers and drawing more and more of these sine tones to create shapes and sounds.

01:46:52.975 –> 01:46:58.695
Alex Cook: So you can do many things that a normal synth couldn’t do if it was a subtractive.

01:46:58.695 –> 01:47:02.375
Alex Cook: The main thing are these kind of big turns or big morphs.

01:47:02.435 –> 01:47:09.275
Alex Cook: So suddenly a solid bass sound can sound like it’s widening or exploding into its like partial as many parts.

01:47:09.275 –> 01:47:16.095
Alex Cook: And you can automate that really quickly to get these kind of really, you know, quote unquote futuristic sounds.

01:47:16.095 –> 01:47:19.115
Alex Cook: And Razor also lets you distort them and do all these other things.

01:47:19.115 –> 01:47:22.755
Alex Cook: So it’s got quite limited controls, but they can access a lot of the sound.

01:47:22.755 –> 01:47:27.875
Alex Cook: And I think the fact that, yeah, the speed of that also is an interface is great.

01:47:28.095 –> 01:47:40.695
Alex Cook: So that really lets you enjoy the sort of LFOs, the envelopes, all these other things in a way that you can’t do with things like Spire and even Serum that lets you mess with stuff.

01:47:40.695 –> 01:47:44.215
Alex Cook: And I do think that, you know, I think I do use Serum quite a lot now.

01:47:44.215 –> 01:47:50.415
Alex Cook: And George mentioned it the other episode and stuff, but that has a certain aesthetic that I found a way around.

01:47:50.415 –> 01:47:54.335
Alex Cook: So I think those are the big synth plugins that I’ve moved between.

01:47:54.335 –> 01:47:59.555
Alex Cook: And I still use combinations of them as a kind of bread and butter while trying to find other things.

01:47:59.555 –> 01:48:00.595
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:48:00.595 –> 01:48:07.895
John Kennedy: We have the questions we ask everybody who comes on the show, which we asked you only recently, which is interesting.

01:48:07.895 –> 01:48:11.135
John Kennedy: A tech question, is there a piece of equipment?

01:48:11.375 –> 01:48:16.675
John Kennedy: I mean, it’s interesting because you’ve set yourself challenges over the years, you know, in a way, haven’t you?

01:48:16.675 –> 01:48:18.435
John Kennedy: You said, right, I’m not using those now.

01:48:18.795 –> 01:48:19.995
John Kennedy: They’re out there with me.

01:48:19.995 –> 01:48:21.295
John Kennedy: Now I am going to use them again.

01:48:21.295 –> 01:48:25.175
John Kennedy: Now I’m not going to be so dogmatic about my approach.

01:48:25.175 –> 01:48:28.115
John Kennedy: So you’re obviously changing and switching up a lot.

01:48:28.115 –> 01:48:29.675
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:48:29.675 –> 01:48:42.695
Alex Cook: I think it’s funny, other equipment I’ve used in this, guitar pedals are a big rabbit hole, I think, and I was messing with that on some of the previous stuff, but it’s kind of funny.

01:48:42.935 –> 01:48:58.155
Alex Cook: But I got quite interested in things like distortion, fuzz, gain, overdrive, because I thought the nuance of that in guitar pedals is quite hard to replicate digitally.

01:48:58.155 –> 01:49:06.475
Alex Cook: And I think you can do it, obviously, there’s so many distortion plugins and you can, but the mix of the playability and tweakability while you’re playing and messing with that stuff.

01:49:06.475 –> 01:49:16.835
Alex Cook: So even though I thought I’d be more interested in like chorus and flanger pedals and delays and all that stuff, I feel like it’s quite nice to mess with and tinker with if you want, even though there are cool ones as pedals.

01:49:16.835 –> 01:49:22.375
Alex Cook: But I found that actually, especially this guitar I mentioned, I could swap between types of pickups.

01:49:22.375 –> 01:49:31.395
Alex Cook: There’s some songs where it’s going from clean to distorted and I’m not changing anything on the pedal, I’m just changing the volume or I’m playing louder.

01:49:31.395 –> 01:49:34.795
Alex Cook: That stuff, you know, because it’s got this production feel, right?

01:49:34.795 –> 01:49:39.095
Alex Cook: You’re talking about clean and distorted, but then it goes right back to how you play it.

01:49:39.095 –> 01:49:46.335
Alex Cook: I think that became, I think, a secret weapon for some of the stuff I’ve been working on in general and a real understanding of that.

01:49:46.335 –> 01:49:51.735
Alex Cook: So I ended up like, yeah, I’ve got more of those sorts of pedals than anything else.

01:49:51.735 –> 01:49:54.615
John Kennedy: Is there a process to your routine?

01:49:54.615 –> 01:49:56.155
John Kennedy: Do you have a routine?

01:49:56.155 –> 01:50:00.535
John Kennedy: Do you get up in the morning and say, right, I’m going to do this first of all.

01:50:01.755 –> 01:50:08.715
John Kennedy: But it seems to me you’re so in demand and working with so many different people at the same time, that it has to be different according to who you’re seeing.

01:50:09.075 –> 01:50:10.555
Alex Cook: Yeah.

01:50:10.555 –> 01:50:13.035
Alex Cook: I think I have routines of certain projects.

01:50:13.295 –> 01:50:15.575
Alex Cook: So I’ll try and get an artist out of their headspace.

01:50:15.575 –> 01:50:16.055
Alex Cook: I’m doing that.

01:50:16.055 –> 01:50:21.315
Alex Cook: If I have time off, I’ll try and be like, okay, what’s the routine for finishing Britpop and so on and so on?

01:50:21.315 –> 01:50:22.875
Alex Cook: How can I?

01:50:22.875 –> 01:50:24.855
Alex Cook: Maybe it’s based on the locale.

01:50:26.035 –> 01:50:27.535
Alex Cook: LA has its own challenges.

01:50:28.115 –> 01:50:32.755
Alex Cook: When I’ve done stuff in Montana, it has its own much easier challenges.

01:50:33.975 –> 01:50:37.615
Alex Cook: Working in London, still on and off and quite regularly.

01:50:38.935 –> 01:50:43.855
Alex Cook: You have to fight the place or roll with it.

01:50:44.535 –> 01:50:46.595
Alex Cook: I think I have little micro routines for that.

01:50:46.595 –> 01:50:49.935
Alex Cook: But I think that’s a funny thing about being so laptop-based.

01:50:50.435 –> 01:50:58.535
Alex Cook: I do a lot of stuff in studios, but I don’t need tons of gear if I just have to rock up somewhere and just edit something or work on something.

01:50:58.635 –> 01:51:07.575
Alex Cook: I really enjoy that too, that it’s this kind of lightweight tool rather than being like, oh, well, I’m someone who needs the rack mount and I need this and need that and whatever.

01:51:07.575 –> 01:51:09.575
Alex Cook: I’m like, I’m always willing to like roll with it.

01:51:09.575 –> 01:51:12.995
Alex Cook: And then the limitation will probably become the most interesting part again.

01:51:12.995 –> 01:51:14.055
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:51:14.055 –> 01:51:15.535
John Kennedy: And advice.

01:51:15.535 –> 01:51:22.535
John Kennedy: How would you advise somebody venturing out into the world of making music in the way that you do?

01:51:24.535 –> 01:51:43.075
Alex Cook: There’s a lot of pressure to pigeonhole oneself, especially as a producer and especially in LA, where there’s kind of a system people be like, oh, he’s the keys guy or this is the drums guy or, you know, or with top liners and writing, you know, be like, oh, it’s a lyric top liner or melodic top line, all these things.

01:51:43.075 –> 01:51:48.575
Alex Cook: And some people and a lot of people are really, can be really specialized and so good at that.

01:51:48.575 –> 01:51:57.355
Alex Cook: But I think if you’re, willing to be involved, sorry, in more than one thing and kind of just, just explore that.

01:51:57.355 –> 01:52:00.475
Alex Cook: I mean, by all means, market yourself as one thing if you want to.

01:52:00.475 –> 01:52:11.095
Alex Cook: But I think it’s, it’s been a really fascinating thing for me as I’ve evolved to sometimes be like, oh, I’m not so good at writing lyrics maybe, or I don’t think about that as much.

01:52:11.095 –> 01:52:12.195
Alex Cook: Oh, let me double down on that.

01:52:12.195 –> 01:52:17.155
Alex Cook: Let me try and actually write something good or, you know, I used to be someone who actually avoided sound design.

01:52:17.155 –> 01:52:22.635
Alex Cook: I was more of the midi chords person, like messing with presets and interesting chords and writing things and doing vocal chops.

01:52:22.635 –> 01:52:25.415
Alex Cook: And then I was like, actually, I should eventually just double down.

01:52:25.415 –> 01:52:31.935
Alex Cook: It’s always almost making a sort of mountain out of your weaknesses and looking for other things.

01:52:31.935 –> 01:52:44.155
Alex Cook: I think that’s a really nice aspect of music, because there’s so many layers you can kind of tinker and figure stuff out and hide and unhide and kind of, yeah, really find your own way between that.

01:52:44.155 –> 01:52:50.995
Alex Cook: But, you know, I was even not that I’m an incredible mixer, but even, you know, be like, oh, I’ll mix my own eight tracks at the center of this album.

01:52:50.995 –> 01:52:56.735
Alex Cook: You know, that became a fun challenge, knowing that this one and three would be done by very legit mixers.

01:52:56.735 –> 01:52:58.775
Alex Cook: It would have its own voice amongst that.

01:52:58.775 –> 01:53:02.275
Alex Cook: So, yeah, once again, it’s like that’s playing with limitations, isn’t it?

01:53:02.275 –> 01:53:06.295
Alex Cook: It’s like your own limitations and not being afraid of the fingerprint of that.

01:53:06.295 –> 01:53:10.555
Alex Cook: And so, yeah, sort of not worrying about it and try your hand at things.

01:53:11.375 –> 01:53:14.015
Alex Cook: And yeah, embracing that, I think.

01:53:14.015 –> 01:53:15.835
John Kennedy: It’s been so great to speak to you again, Alex.

01:53:15.835 –> 01:53:16.875
John Kennedy: Thanks for coming back.

01:53:17.555 –> 01:53:18.595
John Kennedy: I think I’ll take notes again.

01:53:18.595 –> 01:53:23.895
John Kennedy: But brilliant to be able to dig deeper into how you do things and also to dig into Britpop.

01:53:23.895 –> 01:53:27.695
John Kennedy: We should leave with one more selection from Britpop as an outro track.

01:53:27.695 –> 01:53:29.215
John Kennedy: What would you suggest?

01:53:29.215 –> 01:53:30.315
John Kennedy: What should we go for?

01:53:30.315 –> 01:53:31.135
Alex Cook: Wow, that’s…

01:53:31.135 –> 01:53:32.295
Alex Cook: I’ve got a lot to…

01:53:32.295 –> 01:53:33.875
John Kennedy: I mean, there’s a lot to choose from.

01:53:33.875 –> 01:53:36.215
Alex Cook: A lot to choose from.

01:53:36.215 –> 01:53:37.235
Alex Cook: I’m going to do a weird one.

01:53:37.235 –> 01:53:41.975
Alex Cook: This was me the most outside of my comfort zone on Disc 3.

01:53:41.975 –> 01:53:44.035
Alex Cook: It’s called Butterfly Craft.

01:53:44.655 –> 01:53:50.335
Alex Cook: My part of it, the original version, was entirely done on a Lyra 8, the thing that’s just…

01:53:50.335 –> 01:53:51.375
Alex Cook: It’s all oscillators.

01:53:51.375 –> 01:53:53.255
Alex Cook: There’s no way of locking it to any pitch.

01:53:53.255 –> 01:53:54.175
Alex Cook: It’s in these groups.

01:53:54.175 –> 01:54:00.015
Alex Cook: So it’s basically a live take of me messing with a synthesizer with no keys.

01:54:00.015 –> 01:54:02.215
Alex Cook: It’s all just styles.

01:54:02.215 –> 01:54:07.275
Alex Cook: And then there’s a friend of mine who’s a composer, Oliver Leith, who’s worked with my other friend, Matt Copson.

01:54:07.275 –> 01:54:09.835
Alex Cook: And I just seen an opera they had done.

01:54:09.835 –> 01:54:11.615
Alex Cook: And I realized it had some of the same drift.

01:54:11.715 –> 01:54:17.255
Alex Cook: So I just sent him my improvisation, got him to do something almost immediately.

01:54:17.255 –> 01:54:21.135
Alex Cook: And it was completely remote and weird and not on the grid.

01:54:21.135 –> 01:54:29.315
Alex Cook: And yeah, but I think it’s funny because it breaks some of those rules, but it still reminds me of some of the textures I’ve done in some of the tracks you’ve looked at.

01:54:29.315 –> 01:54:34.935
Alex Cook: So maybe it’s funny to listen to this one, because it’s barely using logic or software really.

01:54:36.195 –> 01:54:37.635
Alex Cook: It’s just what it is really.

01:54:37.635 –> 01:54:38.215
John Kennedy: Brilliant.

01:54:38.295 –> 01:54:39.595
John Kennedy: And it could be the future.

01:54:39.935 –> 01:54:40.495
Alex Cook: It could be.

01:54:40.495 –> 01:54:41.655
Alex Cook: I could go down this road.

01:54:56.165 –> 01:55:01.445
John Kennedy: Thank you for listening, and in particular, thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon.

01:55:01.445 –> 01:55:05.945
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01:55:05.945 –> 01:55:13.925
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01:55:13.925 –> 01:55:17.725
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01:55:17.725 –> 01:55:26.405
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01:55:26.425 –> 01:55:27.965
John Kennedy: Once again, thank you for listening.

01:55:27.965 –> 01:55:29.305
John Kennedy: Until next time, goodbye.