Oklou - Choke Enough: First impressions and notes on creative team

Oklou's second debut LP Choke Enough is out now.

I first listened on the commute home from work, and had trouble locking in. The singles still wowed but I wasn't in the right headspace to really sink into the record. A couple days later I put it on in the morning and it really clicked. There's no shortage of reviews out there, but I'll point to Danny L Harle's quote from his post about the album.

I remember the first time I heard Marylou’s music, I was stunned at how it was comprised of only the best things; no filler sounds, no layer synths - just quietly confident melodies, arpeggios and chords… these sounds, to me, are the most beautiful in the world - Danny L Harle

Here on Choke Enough, Oklou finds a middle ground between the achingly melancholic atmosphere of what may still be my favorite work of hers "defeat", and the delicate arch pop lattices of Galore

I will probably write more about this record in my AOTY list next year, but I just want to take a moment to look at the production credits.

Oklou has endeared herself to the most progressive producers in the world, and this album is the fullest expression of those relationships with a seamless blend of contributions from a few interconnected but distinct corners of pop production.

Casey MQ and Oklou are credited as producers on every track, with appearances by A. G. Cook, Danny L Harle, Lucien Krampf, and underscores. I was excited to see Krampf's name show up, lending vocal engineering to a handful of tracks and additional production on the title track as well. Krampf hit my radar as one of a handful of French producers pushing blown out sped up hardcore and trance about five years back (alongside artists like Aamourocean). He features on a number of TDJ's SPF Infini releases as well.

underscores is credited on the best track on the album, Harvest Sky and it's hard not to credit her with the transcendent quality of that particular track (though it bears of the hallmarks of Danny L Harle's signature style as well).

Bringing in a stable of trendy producers for a pop LP is nothing new, but something about the choices for this particular record feels worthy of attention. The blend of PC Music alumni with producers from two distinct scenes that picked up where the revolutionary label left off proves the perfect context for Oklou, who seems herself to be taking inspiration from Cook and co, weaving star persona craft with experiments in electronic pop song structures.

The result is a seamless distillation of state of the art contemporary pop craft. An instant classic.