Review Summary: somewhere between a lullaby and an underwater rave fantasy.
French electronic musician Oklou creates music that exists somewhere between a lullaby and an underwater rave fantasy. Forgive me for conjuring up images of The Legend of Zelda while writing this, but not only does
choke enough sound like it would absolutely bang at a Zora's Domain afterparty, but Oklou tends to employ the sounds of wind instruments in her production in a way that takes me right back to memorizing Ocarina of Time songs on the N64. Oklou's sound palette exudes a retro longing in many ways, but I wouldn't consider nostalgia to be the main impetus behind
choke enough. Despite its obvious callbacks to club aesthetics from the turn of the century ("harvest sky" ft. underscores, with its fist-pumping trance chorus, being a prime example of this), Oklou's blend of ambient dance and experimental pop is just too sleek and futuristic to lay its merits solely in the past. Even the lyrics are encrypted in a mythology that seems to transcend time and place —
"Is the endless still unbound, or am I just different now?"
Lead single "family and friends" actually set me up for a bit of a hurdle when approaching
choke enough for the first time because it spins the most mystifying narrative (ghosts, heart eating, consciousness, time travel, what?) around a climax that eclipses almost every other song on the album. Like stalactite drips echoing in the illuminated blue of a cavern pool, its submerged downtempo rhythm and pearlescent keys create such a gripping undertow of emotion for Oklou's fluttering voice to glide over. And as the song progresses, new melodies and lightfooted drum patterns weave their way into the fabric, initially playing it cool for the first chorus, taking a detour through meadows (a glimpse of Skull Kid playing his flute in the woods), and then pressing forward again until an ice palace choir elevates the second chorus into euphoria and off into the ether. It’s beautiful, it's dramatic, and I found I had to readjust my expectations from there out to reap the rewards of Oklou's various other strengths.
Luckily,
choke enough is not a one-trick pony (one might even say it knows
too many). Like any good club kid, Oklou leans into repetition and knows how to build tension out of it. Many of these songs actually begin quite subdued and slowly build tension all the way into their third act before really paying off. Take "ict" for example: a wistful trumpet meditation that slowly spins up into a helium-induced mania, piling on more melodies and vocal tracks into busy layers until the song pops, sending a puff of leaves drifting back to the forest floor. Oftentimes the apex of a song steps through a reflection instead of dropping the adrenaline hammer, but the journey to get there is always so vivid. There are also tracks like "(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)" and "forces" which exist solely as textural stretches between dreamscapes, and "plague dogs", despite its gorgeous teardrop melody and bubblegum cutesiness, feels more like a rough sketch than anything else. These are all things I've come to appreciate with repeat listens, but maybe you can see how the stunning but conventionally structured beauty of "family and friends" could set an unrealistic expectation for the rest of the album.
There are at least a few more pop songs scattered amongst the tracklist that act as bastions of lucidity to keep Oklou’s underwater rave fantasy from going belly up; they just don't carry the same type of emotional anchor. “take me by the hand" is a total romp through the park—a love song duet featuring Swedish rapper/singer Bladee, whose melodic mumble melts like butter against Oklou's sprightly chirp. The aforementioned “harvest sky” is arguably the most infectious club tune of them all and features a feverishly emphatic appearance from hyperpop princess underscores. And then "blade bird" wraps things up with a baby blue lullaby of breezy acoustic indietronica that harbors a surprisingly self-aware analysis of self-worth and the fear of holding someone hostage with your love. It's easily one of the biggest highlights of the album and also a far cry from anything else stylistically, but that's Oklou for you.
choke enough changes direction frequently throughout its runtime, and not every track will satisfy every listener, but its sleek production, catchy melodies, and abstract imagery keeps the package feeling thematically cohesive. And if there is one thing that certainly remains constant, it's a feeling of impermanence—life flickering by faster than you can count, a blur of fleeting memories in the periphery, grasping at any sliver of tangible meaning to this life. What keeps you here until the end? Whether it's love, a mysterious personal destiny, or just sweating it out on the dance floor,
choke enough has it all.
