Before they shaped the future of music, and before they led the indispensable label that housed this sea-changing output, PC Music’s A. G. Cook and Danny L Harle were just two British kids — “Dux Kidz,” as they called themselves — who wanted to have fun. Their 2012 output under the “Dux” name ranged from happy-go-lucky pop to artfully disfigured hip-hop and even impressionistic classical music.
All of these tracks featured commercial instrumentation pulled from romplers, MIDI banks, and sample CDs — an unabashed embrace of sounds once considered tacky and undesirable. Why make an honest attempt at distinguished music with such cheeky components? Because that sort of thing sounded like a damn fun time.