The Birth and Evolution of PC Music: A Biography

Jack Doczy

Music Journalist

Out of the music scene in 2013 London, there came a very influential record label and art collective called PC Music. Brought into being by the ingenious producer A. G. Cook, it soon built its reputation on surreal, exaggerated gestures toward pop music tropes of the 1990s and 2000s. Over the next ten years, PC Music would redefine the parameters of pop and leave an indelible mark on the music industry before transitioning to focus on archive projects and special reissues in 2024. 

Cook, then studying music at Goldsmiths, University of London, had already begun experimenting in unconventional musical areas with different projects, one of them being Gamsonite, a “pseudo-label” and blog for his early collaborations. Following a more serious A&R role, he created PC Music in August 2013 to forge a new generation of pop music. The first label releases came in the form of SoundCloud uploads, which quickly gained a huge following. 

Within one year, PC Music had published 40 songs on SoundCloud, some of which reached over 100,000 listens by September 2014. At this point, not one physical record had been released. The first paid download was made with Hannah Diamond’s “Every Night” in November 2014, with the first release, QT’s “Hey QT,” coming out on XL Recordings the same month, in collaboration with the late PC Music affiliate Sophie. 

It wasn’t until March 2014 that PC Music would make its live debut in the United States, at South by Southwest, presented by a three-strong bill featuring Cook, Sophie, and QT. In 2015, the label would return and increase its presence at SXSW with a wider roster, proving to be a defining moment in its progression. 

Before long, PC Music would become synonymous with both a specific sound and a visual identity. The sound of the label can be typically defined with pitched-up, feminine vocals, bright synthetic textures, and a playful composite of disregarded sounds and genres that bridge a wide spectrum: from bubblegum dance to Balearic trance to wonky and electro house. Cook drew from Korean and Japanese pop, gyaru culture, and production techniques from Max Martin, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis. 

This aesthetic consists of cuteness, camp and kawaii, often with a sinister Lynchian undertone, and it was termed by critics as both polarizing and groundbreaking. Artists usually create personas devised from cyberculture, reflecting an advanced aesthetic of advertisement, consumerism and corporate branding. 

In October 2015 it was announced that PC Music was partnering with Columbia Records, releasing Danny L Harle’s EP and the Cook collaboration with Chinese pop star Chris Lee. The label’s first proper compilation album, PC Music Volume 1, came out in May 2015, with a second released in November 2016, and the third in 2022. 

The name PC Music continued to gather momentum as it went on to perform at a run of prestigious festivals—the Red Bull Music Academy Festival—and work with more mainstream acts such as Charli XCX. Its emergent inimitability and ingenuity have seen it receive kudos and congratulations from a broad range of publications, including Dazed, Fact, The Huffington Post and Resident Advisor. 

To celebrate its tenth anniversary as a label, PC Music announced on June 2023 that the new releases would end in 2023. Starting in 2024, the label will operate archival projects and special reissues only, therefore retaining its legacy to go on and influence further generations of musicians and producers. The last, entirely new release from PC Music was Thy Slaughter’s debut album, Soft Rock, which came out in December 2023 and features collaborations with the likes of Alaska Reid, Caroline Polachek, Ellie Rowsell and Charli XCX. 

The impact of PC Music on the music industry cannot be denied. Its new sound, visual identity and peculiar approach to pop music became inspirational for new generations of artists and producers. That music was dubbed as the “playful composite of disregarded sounds and genres” by Clive Martin, embracing the aesthetics of consumerism and corporate branding and upsetting the status quo of traditional pop music. 

As PC Music focuses on archival projects, its influence still feels close to home—a reminder of the ability of creativity and innovation to fundamentally shift the music world. This is a ten-year journey that has been a testament to the effect of visionaries in artistry who dare to break their way through the norm and take music into a new frontier.