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Coco Gauff settles serve and nerves to book Osaka clash in US Open last 16

Coco Gauff settles serve and nerves to book Osaka clash in US Open last 16

2023 US Open champion beats Poland’s Frech 6-3, 6-1 Gauff avoids early stumbles that marred first rounds Sets up blockbuster clash with Osaka in fourth round Coco Gauff arrived in New York with more questions than answers after reshuffling her coaching team on the eve of the year’s final grand slam. Her second major at Roland Garros in June had given way to a summer-long revolt of her serve, often marked by spates of double faults and premature exits, including a first-round departure from Wimbledon. She has framed the change as a long-term fix rather than a quick repair, saying she did not want to “waste time playing a way I don’t want to play”. After two tense night sessions to launch her US Open campaign, the 21-year-old American finally looked settled on Saturday morning, advancing to the second week of her home major for the fourth year running with a 6-3, 6-1 dismissal of Poland’s Magdalena Frech. Continue reading...

AG Cook review – the hyperpop auteur delivers a thrilling Brooklyn show

AG Cook review – the hyperpop auteur delivers a thrilling Brooklyn show

Brooklyn Paramount, New York The super-producer, whose big name collaborators include Charli xcx and Beyoncé, goes maximalist for a euphoric, high-energy Friday-night triumph Everyone is trying to out-scream and out-diva each other at AG Cook’s sold-out Brooklyn Paramount show. Midway through his Friday-night DJ set for his Britpop 25 tour, the producer and moptopped dungeon master of the hyperpop universe has put on his Von Dutch remix, a standout single from last summer’s Brat invasion that brings pop princesses Charli xcx and Addison Rae together for some prima donna repartee atop a distorted, industrial production. When the bridge’s thumping hydraulic bass drops and opens up its warped wormhole of sound, the packed room suddenly fills with skilled (too skilled) impressions of Rae’s piercing six-second shriek. Cook, who has been bopping behind the DJ booth up until now, collapses to his knees at the center of the stage, bowled over by the sheer energy in the room. Such are the demands of Cook’s delirious brand of pop: like a black hole, it must suck you into its vortex. Cook emerged on the scene in 2013 with his London-based experimental pop music label PC Music, and his supersized exaggerations of mainstream pop cliches – think Auto-Tuned voices pitch-shifted to a pip-squeak chipmunk register, cartoon boing-splat-zap sound effects on steroids, and glossy, hyper-artificial production – invited intensely polarized responses. Depending on whom you asked at the time, PC Music was either the piss-take creation of a deeply unsatisfied art school student with some personal, unresolved vendetta against pop music, or an explosive collective of rabble-rousers redefining electronic music and bringing a much-needed dash of girly playfulness to the UK’s mostly macho house revival scene. Yet, love it or hate it, Cook’s brand of pop maximalism ultimately proved here to stay: by the end of the label’s decade-long run, Cook was working with megastars such as Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, and artists of the extended PC Music-verse – including frequent Cook collaborator Charli xcx and the late Sophie – were rightful stars of their own. Continue reading...