On his third album Britpop – out today – A. G. Cook warps reality to divine truths of pop’s past, present and future, he tells Best Fit for this week’s digital cover
Within the title itself, Britpop, lies a tension - and that’s textbook A. G. Its two components, ‘Britain’ and ‘Pop’, are products of our cultural imagination, totally imaginary devices that resist any easy or comfortable definition. The term might conjure ideas of boys with middle partings, parkas and that dress, when an island colonised pop culture with arrogance and optimism, but Cook’s Britpop is, quite literally, otherworldly. Its artwork is an uncanny distortion of the Union Jack rendered in pink and green, a potential ‘then’.
For the past few years, he has been both exhaustingly busy and geographically unmoored. He made a home in the “scarily infinite” Los Angeles, and spent a year in his girlfriend’s hometown in Montana falling in love and feeling sick in among its vertiginous mountains and vast rural landscape. “Los Angeles is unpredictable,” he reflects. “I love London, too, but its music scene is a lot more rigid. Though early PC stuff had its fan base here, it reached a point of cultural acceptance in the US much earlier.”
Cook started to question why that might be, the cultural character and differences between two places which are so entrenched, so enormous, that we barely have the language to grapple with them. “It’s funny, the American relish around history versus the British nonchalance and overconfidence,” he says. “When I’ve looked into Britpop, it’s not just about the 90s or my own understanding of things – it’s about anachronisms and the funny details, especially with British history, that go so far back that we can barely understand it. It becomes fantasy, a sort of theatre, or a pantomime.” Not unlike pop itself.
Deconstruction has always been an intrinsic part of his music. “I think a lot of my music, although not fully self-aware, is at least in dialogue with itself or questioning something. Maybe a section of one track might relate to another down the line – it’s not trying to hide its different parts. It’s almost like when you see a fire engine: it’s not trying to be one slick, compact thing; you can actually see the nozzles and all the buttons. Someone could easily design a fire engine that looks like an iMac where it’s just faceless and slick, but I love things that have functions when you observe them. It’s quite a weird metaphor for it, but I like my music to do that as well: have these pieces that are all smoothed over into a perfect piece of dance music. And if that means it fails as a piece of dance music, that’s fine. That’s another side mission.”
Read the full interview by Sophie L. Walker now over on Best Fit.
Dehd centres community on their road to success
Each coming up in their own ways through the DIY scenes of cities across America, the members of Dehd cling to a view of constructing music careers as vessels for community-building rather than commodification. “I left home at 17,” says bassist and vocalist Emily Kempf. “I [later] came back, but I consider my childhood and my formative years as [DIY]. Like, I say I grew up in the DIY community. I grew up at DIY house shows. Like, I’m most comfortable in house shows and on the floors of friends’ houses and touring all over the country.”
In the mid 2010s when Kempf first entered the scene, she began repeatedly running into none other than Jason Balla. The two began noticing each other out at events, and though they were always in and out of other projects, they began keeping tabs on the other’s life and work. From there, a friendship — and, for a short time, a romantic relationship — between the two flourished. When Kempf finally made the move to Chicago where Balla lived, the pair ran into the man who would eventually become their group’s missing piece, Eric McGrady, at none other than a show at the Animal Kingdom. At the time, Balla and Kempf were involved in other projects, and Dehd was something of a way to pass time for fun. Asking McGrady to joined just seemed like the natural, exciting thing to do.
“This is the only band I’ve been in where we formed it and the only rule was to have fun and there was no, like, ‘Let’s make money! Let’s make it!’ It was just like, the only rule was to have fun,” Kempf says. Not surprisingly, Dehd also became the only project that ever did actually make Kempf and her bandmates any money. It was 2020’s Flower of Devotion that carried Dehd to a noticeably larger audience and significant critical acclaim. While some bands may have taken such a moment as a cue to engage in creative extravagance, Dehd decided to double down on the methods that had made their success in the first place. This choice was intentional. Turning their backs on the communities and styles that had propelled them forward wouldn’t have just been a disservice, it would have been detrimental to their artistic and personal character.
“The thing that’s really cool when you start out making music and touring in the underground sort of way is like the connections you make with people and the experience, the actual life that you get to share with people…. And then, to see what other people’s lives are like,” Balla explains. “The more popular your band gets, you know, maybe you’re staying at hotels, or you’re doing all this stuff, and there’s all these barriers between you and other people.”
Kathryn Williams on Joni Mitchell
I bought my first Joni Mitchell album on vinyl when I was 16 or 17, from a place in Liverpool that was full of hippie shops and a few vinyl record shops too. It’s not there anymore but I can close my eyes and remember it perfectly.
The one I bought was her first album, Song to a Seagull, and I got really into it. Then, when I was at uni, someone lent me Blue and I just couldn’t get over it. It was like kissing someone and realising that they are the love of your life. I never got around to listening to all her other albums because I can’t get away from Blue. It’s such a perfectly encapsulated record.
As a songwriter, I love “A Case of You” because of the almost journalistic way in which it’s written. From the very first statement – “Just before our love got lost you said / I am as constant as the Northern Star” – onwards, it’s just amazing line after amazing line. It’s just perfect. As songs go, it does everything. I mean, it goes deep. I love how she makes these really bold statements and mixes that up with more mundane details. I’ve definitely sobbed to “A Case of You” many, many times.
Trying to deeply explain why you love something so beautiful is impossible sometimes. You just can’t. It’s like standing on top of a mountain, looking out at the stunning view, or trying to photograph the moon. You can’t get close to the reality. So, yeah, I don’t think I can explain my love for this song any more than that. But it’s probably in my top three favourites of all time.
As told to Alan Pedder
Three things to get excited about this week
The archive: This week, the music world said a hard goodbye to producer, artist, and engineer Steve Albini. Working across projects for Nirvana, The Pixies, the Breeders, PJ Harvey, and others as well as founding the Chicago studio Electrical Audio and playing in a number of his own bands. As many reflect on his work and words this week, his comment from the 2002 film D.I.Y or Die looms large as an indicator of the legacy he left in the industry. In the clip, he shares his thoughts on the challenging economic setup of music and explains how bands can best circumvent financial barriers to pave their own way to success.
The book: For any history buff – let alone a music history one – Kelefa Sanneh’s Major Labels is required reading. It explores the history of seven different genres, weaving together guides of pop, hip-hop, country, R&B, dance, punk, and rock. It’s an expert retelling of how the business of music has been responsible for what we consume and how listening demographics have shifted over time. More than that, it takes up an essential question: Are genre and rigid categorization still relevant in an age of digitally-consumed music?
The artist: Offering a weird, tongue-in-cheek take on indie-pop is UK-based band Welly. Commenting on the ironies and hypocrisies of youth culture, this week they release their latest single “Soak Up The Culture.”
Something Old, Something New
Every week, one of Best Fit's writers or editors share their recommendations of two records they love - one from the past, one from the present. This week, Reviews editor David Cobbald on Caravan Palace’s <|°_°|> (2015) and Willlow’s empathogen (2024)
French electro swing may sound like a pretty niche genre, but Caravan Palace make their sound for the masses. 2015’s <|°_°|> – also known simply as Robot Face – is a whirlwind of musical exploration, journeying through big band swing motifs and infusing giant electro production as they go.
“Lone Digger” is the obvious standout, especially being the main hit from the record, and its rap-esque chorus is infectious as it is fast. The floating style of “Wonderland” could be taken from any fever dream film sequence, and tracks like “Comics” and “Aftermath” take you through jukebox samples while keeping you on your toes with every step. It’s not a typical vocal record, and while most melodies are sampled, chopped, and pasted all over each track, there’s still an urge to sing along to them.
Robot Face is a perfect listen start to finish, even if it takes you places you weren’t expecting. I love this record due to its timeless approach to a genre that is typically quite specific in its referencing – where you think it should go right it goes left, and left couldn’t be more right.
There’s something really interesting about an artist taking a sharp turn into the left-field and succeeding, and WILLOW’s empathogen has done just that. After the rock and heavy leaning <COPINGMECHANISM>, empathogen skips into the world of jazz-infused ideas and influence – the vocal slide on “home” with Jon Batiste aptly opening the album, affirming what’s to come.
It's a brilliant record due to its unwavering and fearless approach to stylistics, with a 7/4 time signature that evolves and adapts as it progresses on “b i g f e e l i n g s,” playing with range and song length on “down,” singing quarter-tones on “ancient girl,” and experimenting with percussive hits on “symptom of life” and “false self” to name but a few. WILLOW’s vocal has only improved too, and her delivery becomes an instrument in itself across the record, but especially on “no words 1&2” as she scats and riffs with piano and other instrumentation – playing even more into the jazz influence.
What stands out now for WILLOW is her talent, and after being known as ‘Will Smith’s daughter’ for so long, I feel this record takes her away from that and into being an artist with verifiable skill and merit.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat among out editors and writers right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Nia Smith, Good Looks, Mieu, Kumbi and coverstar Naima Adams.