#19: 'choke enough'
the debut album by Oklou, how i got scammed on the internet, and other music thoughts
I don’t really discuss what I’m listening to often. Unless you’re my fiancée—oh yeah, life update: I’m engaged!!!—who must, along with a few close friends, sometimes endure my pseudo-intellectual rants on whatever trivia or personal interpretations I’ve gathered about a musical hyperfixation, otherwise, I don’t usually go into it.
Currently, that hyperfixation is choke enough, by Oklou.
I think one of the reasons I don’t really discuss what I’m listening to often is because I don’t constantly seek out music like I once did. And I think the reason I don’t seek out music like I once did is because I also make it (more on that towards the end). The other reasons can pretty much be boiled down to the ol’ “I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me for a member.” But, I don’t choose the hyperfixations, the hyperfixations choose me.
So, disclaimer, I am not a music critic. I am simply a girl who can’t stop listening to a specific piece of music who is compelled to nerd out about why in what is (hopefully) an unpretentious way.
who is she?
Like any other day, I got a text from my friend, Ryan, on the group chat with our other friend, Georgia (the three of us are in a band together, so more on that someday).
I hit play on the first track, to hear a preview, and then I never stopped. I idled there on the couch, mesmerized. Daniel said, “I think we found the right BPM for your brain.”
Since my first time hearing this record, I have put it on at least twice a day. Each track feels like a hug to my psyche; like someone put a blanket over my mind, tucked it in, and gave it a kiss on the forehead (yeah, my mind has a forehead in this analogy). I rarely go to hear just one song, almost always having to play the entire album from start to finish. The few times I’ve gone to play a specific track alone, it felt wrong, like a single brush stroke that’s been separated from its painting. The last time I was that way with an album was back in 2019 with The Japanese House’s Good at Falling (although I did once listen to Follow My Girl 40+ times in one day while coming down from doing m*lly for the first time*.)
*note: that come-down was not fun and I have not done m*lly since and never will again!!! 0:)
So, I was hooked. Ryan mentioned that she was touring North America this year. In fact, her tour was postponed to this fall on account of her being too pregnant to travel inter-continentally. However, the tickets were already sold out… and because I was in a high state of need and not thinking clearly, I took to what I thought was a pure, safe part of the internet exclusively for people who seek the truth and floated a request for tickets to the October show at the Knockdown Center. Surely, nobody would take advantage of this on a fandom subreddit, right?
Couldn’t have been more wrong. I would show you the screenshots of the message exchange with the person I was swindled by, but I am honestly so ashamed that in this year 2025, after so many HR training courses at work about phishing and fraud and hacking, that I fell for this and seeing the messages in my inbox gives me shudders all over again. Thankfully, it was only $100—which I know is a lot of money but could have been WAY worse, so I have to count my blessings where I can—but let this be a lesson to anyone out there not to make the same mistake I did.
Okay, now that I’ve hopefully made you feel better about yourself and your life choices, let’s get into it!!
why is she?
Marylou Mayniel, AKA Oklou, is a French DJ/musician/producer/vocalist who is 31 years old, and (as mentioned earlier, and at the time of writing this) pregnant. I cannot tell you how refreshing this was to find out. As a fellow 31 year-old musician, with a baby possibly in my next five years, I think this is partly why I feel so connected to the music and lyrics.
Co-produced by electronic music juggernauts, Casey MQ, Danny Harle, and A.G. Cook, choke enough seemed destined to be a hit from the beginning, even with its plans changing over time. Reported here by electronicbeats.net:
“What initially meant to be a project full of dance music turned into an experimental soundscape defined by minimal club rhythms and ambient explorations featuring artists like Bladee and underscores. It’s a snapshot of time, featuring the many versions of Oklou. When asked if she feels more connected to herself after putting choke enough together, she answers: ‘I don’t think so. Releasing and making albums so far has never been about finding comfort and more about crystallizing the moment. Lots of questions, no answers.’”
Many of Oklou’s interviews like the above solidified this idea I felt listening to the music: that there was this incredible presence baked into the songwriting stage all the way through production. Maybe this is why I find the experience of intentionally listening to the album as a whole, front to back, does it the most justice. Hitting play and letting the next 35 minutes and 44 seconds be whatever it will be (working, taking a walk, doing a strength training routine that requires all of my brain power to keep track of reps) feels more like a meditation than a form of entertainment. During many of the album’s moments, I’m even transported to a happy time in my life where I regularly zoned out playing video games like the The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, or the underwater level of a Super Mario game on my Gamecube—only this time with existential lyrics about being a woman in 2025 whose Saturn has utterly returned playing in the background.
the tracks
I love searching for song meanings. Sometimes you find out the musician just “thought the words sounded good” and that’s okay and fascinating in its own way, but it’s a gift to people—and aspiring songwriters—who need to believe in some kind of purpose in life when that search doesn’t result in a dead end, and this is the case with this record. While Oklou seems to be a pretty private person (love that), thankfully, there is a decent enough amount of information on each one
endless being about the embracing of ambiguity; thank you for recording being about watching disaster videos on the internet for comfort; ict (standing for ‘ice cream truck’) being about ice cream and summer and joy; choke enough being about the lengths people will go to to feel alive (“I’ll crash this car to take a photo”); and obvious touching on the pitfalls of consumerism, and how glorious it is to look around and smell the roses:
You got pretty much everything you need to get by (Isn't it obvious?)
You get pretty lost when you try to figure it out (It's so obvious)
On family and friends, she sings:
If I ever cradle my belly
Stepping into the fantasy
Will I wanna go back
In time
To the infinite center
In the womb of my mother?
Is the chorus so loud…
… Let me forever lie in bed
Blessed by family and friends
Starting life at the end
Maybe it's okay
As one contributor on genius annotated:
“‘Starting life at the end’ could reflect Oklou’s feelings about entering her 30s—an age where she might no longer see herself as young, yet her career is still unfolding. Born in 1993, she may feel that her success is truly beginning at a time when youth is slipping away, making her question whether she’s starting too late or if new beginnings can emerge even when it feels like time is running out.”
Well, damn, if that ain’t oddly specific and relatable as hell.
In an interview for The FADER, Oklou seemed to confirm this a bit, stating:
“[The song] definitely holds thoughts around the options that are being presented to me as a human being, as a woman, as an artist. It holds a lot of questioning.”
It seems like there was once an unspoken taboo around writing music that questions what it means to be a woman who may (or may not) want to be a mother in addition to having a career that is being broken right now, CharliXCX’s I think about it all the time being the most standout example of late, with Oklou joining that camp, and thank God. Part of me wonders if maybe we’ve finally reached a place in society where women can wonder that aloud through art (see also the film Nightbitch), but it’s still kind of wild to me that it’s a rare and new thing.
One of the more objective hits of the record, and fittingly the closing track, blade bird strikes that pop itch while hitting you with a scenario in which, I don’t know about you but, my previous dating life was all too familiar with.
In interviews, Oklou explained that the song was inspired by a recurring pattern she notices in herself and in many women: falling for people who are free-spirited, elusive, and difficult to “catch.” These people often symbolize freedom or artistic independence, and the women who love them may feel like they’re “cages” just by wanting closeness. She described blade bird as a metaphor for someone she loves but can’t pin down.
I've come to terms
My baby is a bird
When you're in the sky
I'm hoping you'll returnWhat can I say
Knew it right away
You are what you are
And I feel like a cage
It’s… just a really, very beautiful and bittersweet song (and you can watch her perform it live with ice dancers gliding and twirling around her in the video I linked earlier in this story).
One of my other favorites is harvest sky; a club banger about a summer solstice celebration called La fête de Saint-Jean, in Poitiers, France (Oklou’s hometown).
‘harvest sky’ is probably my third attempt to talk about one thing that happens at times during festivities; zoom out from the crowd and enter a lonely mental space.
— via Clash
In it, she sings:
I danced, if only for a second
Still, with no one to watch me, I felt kinda silly
Obsessed with living in the present
And with no one around me, I come alive
At this age, I wouldn't wanna be invited anyway (Oh)
These days, I tend to want some distance
(When I watch from the balcony, I feel alright)
All I can say is, introverts freaking UNITE. This do be how I’m feeling lately, and I can’t tell you how much it means to have a song to dance to about being over overstimulated.
final thoughts
Lately, I’ve been embracing the idea of “art finding you.” If my friend hadn’t sent me choke enough, I’m not sure I ever would’ve heard it. I’d like to think I would have—I love electro-pop (hi Caroline Polachek, Hannah Diamond, Imogen Heap)—but maybe not. And that’s okay, but I”m so glad it did.
It feels a little hypocritical to say that as someone who creates music and is supposed to be promoting it any chance I get. I mean, mad respect to the people who are constantly listening to music from new artists and building their knowledge. We depend on you. But as someone with a bit of skin in the game, I don’t want to start comparing myself to others too much, which is why I currently feel the need to embrace the belief that if a song or album crosses your path and it clicks, then it was meant to. I am still prone to getting self-conscious about not immediately jumping on a hyped-up artist or song that everyone else is discussing, but if anyone asks me if I’ve heard then I can just honestly say, “It hasn’t found me yet.” I’ll get there in my own time.
Not to go too deeply into my music artist “journey” or whatever, but, for context, most of my life, songwriting was a quiet, personal thing—part hobby, part healing. I never felt a strong push to “pursue it” because, honestly, I respected music too much to try. I didn’t feel the need to add to the noise. I liked being the person who could make music, but didn’t. And then one day I couldn’t not… that’s the short version, for now. Where I’m currently at is it just feels good to make something and release it with little to no fanfare—like a piece of art you spent hours making and then quietly hang on the wall. Maybe someone sees it. Maybe they don’t. But it’s there.
What I love about Oklou is that she seems like someone who’s doing exactly that—feeling her way through, on her own timeline. She’s earned the team she has now, probably over years of quiet work in her 20s. It doesn’t feel manufactured, it feels like expression, all while getting to live your life on the sidelines. And I guess that’s what I’m chasing, too.
Thanks for reading! See youuuuu whenever I’m obsessed with something to this degree again lol.
— Er 🌹