A. G. Cook on Scoring Charli xcx Film, Avoiding Brat Songs

When it got here to discovering a composer for Charli xcx‘s mockumentary “The Moment,” no one made more sense than her longtime producer and friend A. G. Cook. Though he’d never scored a feature before, his fingerprints are all over “Brat,” Charli’s seminal 2024 album that grew to become a lime-green, party-girl phenomenon and serves as the backdrop for the Aidan Zamiri-directed movie.

In “The Moment,” which premiered at Sundance Film Festival before opening in choose theaters on Friday, an alternate-reality Charli must select between standing by her artwork or promoting out when a sinister director (performed by Alexander Skarsgård) is employed to make her live performance film. But “The Moment” principally avoids songs from “Brat,” relying instead on an electrifying score from Cook that evokes — though doesn’t straight pull from — the sonic panorama of the album.

“I’ve been working with Charli for so long that, reading the script and seeing the fly-on-the-wall situations with venues, managers, tours — that feels very funny and also real and vivid to me,” Cook told Variety over Zoom just hours before he took off for Sundance. “‘Brat’ is used almost to haunt Charli as a character, so for me it’s just a really nice opportunity to think about the palette of that album but also twist it in ways.”

Below, Cook speaks more about scoring “The Moment,” how David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” impressed him and the movie’s big “Bitter Sweet Symphony” needle drop.

When did you first hear about “The Moment” and the way was the thought of scoring it dropped at you? 

I feel it’s been precisely a 12 months since I read the script and really began doing some bits of the sound already. It was despatched round in January, and it was during the L.A. fires as nicely, so I used to be presupposed to be in L.A. and then I wasn’t and I used the further week or two to start doing bits of the music. I did lots it before they shot, and then clearly I labored on it again to image afterwards. There was loads of causes for that, however it was good because it also meant that it was a part of the Coachella and Glastonbury units and it was in Aidan and the solid and crew’s ears and minds as they had been truly [filming].

“Dread,” by which you pattern Charli and Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” is the track that was used at Coachella and Glastonbury, proper?

“Dread” was used for that type of first trailer at the end of Coachella, and then there’s an extended version we zoomed in on for Glastonbury with the “Brat” backdrop going on hearth. They’re all kind of different components of the longer observe. And there’s other approach subtler issues, like me playing bits and items in DJ units round that time. But “Dread’s” been the one that is the type of main theme, even though it’s used a bit otherwise in the film edit.

This is your first time scoring a feature movie. What was your method?

It’s a very bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime transient anyway just because of being concerned in “Brat.” I had resisted doing full-length music scores — I’d performed some quick items and I’ve some actually shut buddies who do movie music continually so I understand how a lot work that is. I mainly arrange all these guidelines for myself. I used to be like OK, I don’t need any of Charli’s vocal in the score, like I don’t need to use her voice until you see it on the display — she’s rehearsing a track or she hears it in a automobile. And we only break that at the end with the “I Love It” [sample] in “Dread,” however that’s also such an odd use of it. It’s like, nothing to do with “Brat.”

I had this palette that nearly felt like a full score before they shot, like actually within per week of studying the script. But then, clearly there have been these sure scenes that I actually wished to good to image. Towards the end of the movie is the place this other, more emotional music takes over that actually has to work with the actual dialogue and monologues.

Tell me more about subverting the sonic palette of “Brat” for the score.

There’s bits and items of “Brat,” however I’m not utilizing the precise melodic content — there’s a few of the same harsh synth textures, however they’re truly used fairly sparingly and towards the end of the movie they start to crumble. There’s some referencing of that bass that you may hear on “365,” so it was slightly little bit of that DNA. But on “Brat” itself, I used to be having lots more enjoyable. You know, even just how we did drums and recording stuff, this was lots more managed. Like there’s not a lot drums in this, and after they are available in it’s actually apparent.

I’m also a big fan of scores with loads of silences in them, so this is one thing I needed to push and pull lots. There’s one thing actually awkward about the approach this entire movie is shot, you recognize? It’s received this fly-on-the-wall high quality and often you see glimpses of Charli as this famous person. So I wished it to have this feeling of actually excessive music moments and then issues fully vanish.

Were you impressed by any other movie scores while making this one?

When it was the L.A. fires and I used to be writing was also the same week that David Lynch died. And I’m a big fan of Lynch and all the Angelo Badalementi soundtracks like “Twin Peaks” and “Mulholland Drive.” I used to be rewatching some Lynch stuff, particularly “Mulholland Drive,” which thematically felt prefer it was some relation to “The Moment.” There’s that opening shot the place they’re driving the canyons and it’s harking back to the type of “Twin Peaks” type of suspended traditional chords, however the chord progression is shifting so slowly that your mind doesn’t essentially latch on to them being the typical optimistic or adverse, joyful or unhappy — the emotion is fairly ambiguous. You can hear that across some of my other stuff, however I’d say even though “Dread” has this big panic factor, loads of the chords truly transfer in this approach. There’s also one piece of music in the direction of the end the place Charli has a monologue and it shifts round however it never fully sits on one emotion. So that was a really aware affect.

Besides bits of “Brat” songs right here and there, the only needle drop in “The Moment” is the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” How did that come to be and the way did it work together with your score?

It was in the script and it was just about like, “We’re going to blow all the budget on one big sync.” It felt very on model, like “OK, there’s going to be only one needle drop and it’s going to be really good and really important.” And it stops the score itself from having to do this factor the place it’s just working round these big songs all the time. That gave it someplace to go and type of crescendo in the direction of. And for that purpose I’ve no strings in the score, like “Bitter Sweet” can be the first string you hear. Probably the most intricate little bit of the score is the place it kind of morphs into “Bitter Sweet,” and that was performed actually rigorously. They managed to search out some of the authentic stems, so I may actually finesse and have it are available in at just the proper second. I haven’t heard many scores that actually do that, the place the one big needle drop also type of morphs and oozes out of the earlier score.

Would you score a movie again?

What’s humorous is my tracks as A. G. Cook had been getting longer and longer — from “7G” onwards I’ve these 10-minute tracks. And then some of those longer ones had been already being utilized in small movies right here and there, and I’ve performed issues for vogue soundtracks as nicely. There’s part of my music that actually is said to that. So I feel undoubtedly, so long as the project is one thing that feels contemporary. I’m nearly sure that I’ll.

This interview has been edited and condensed.