"She was the one to say if it was ‘Brat’ or not... She works really really fast, and if we’re bored by something, we’ll just move on": Charli XCX producers Finn Keane and AG Cook on her "relentless" creative process

Following the nomination of Charli XCX's Brat for a Mercury Prize, two of the project's producers have spoken with NME about the album's meteoric success.

AG Cook and Finn Keane (who also works under the alias EASYFUN) were interviewed on the red carpet for the 2024 Mercury Prize ceremony late last week. Cook described the process of working on Brat as "focused and relentless" and praised Charli's "clear vision" of the project's direction.

"We knew it was going to be called ‘Brat’ for the entire two years of making it, and we cut anything that wasn’t ‘Brat’," Cook said. "If it didn’t feel ‘Brat’, it was gone! We’d barely even talk about it again out of embarrassment of it not being ‘Brat’ enough."

NME asked Keane if, while working on the project, he had any inkling of how stratospherically popular Brat would become following its release. "When you’re working on something you can never really think like that, to be honest," he replied. "You just try to make the strongest and most confident music you can, and push it to make it better than anything you’ve done before. We could never predict something like what happened with Brat."

The pair also opened up about working with Charli, describing her creative process as unusually fast, confident and driven by instinct. "She’s so instinctive in the way she works. She works really really fast, and if we’re bored by something, we’ll just move on," Keane said. "That for me is so exciting because it’s really hard to find artists with the confidence to work like that."

Keane explained that both Brat highlight Von Dutch and Speed Drive, Charli's contribution to the Barbie soundtrack, were recorded and produced in the space of a day. "It was quite a chill session too," he said. "Probably about four hours, to give you a sense of how quickly Charli can work."

Cook and Keane produced Brat alongside The 1975 drummer and solo artist George Daniel and Canadian Grammy-winner Cirkut. Gesaffelstein, Hudson Mohawke and The Dare also contributed.

Though Brat received a nomination for the 2024 Mercury Prize - and was the bookies' favourite for the win - the award ultimately went to Leeds band English Teacher for debut album This Could Be Texas.