Paris, FR · ethereal pop · art-pop · electronic

Oklou

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Gossamer French avant-pop — choral synths and whispered melody, songs that feel lit by candles and screens at once.

Oklou is the recording name of Marylou Mayniel, born in 1993 and raised in the countryside outside Poitiers. She trained in piano and cello at a conservatory and sang in choirs as a child, while an older brother's CDs and a first record by Gorillaz shaped her early listening. She began releasing music under other names before settling on Oklou after moving to Paris in 2015.

In Paris she co-founded the DJ collective TGAF, playing weekly radio shows and live sets around the city, and attended a Red Bull Music Academy residency in Montreal where she met longtime collaborator Casey Manierka-Quaile. She released a run of EPs through the later 2010s, including one on the NUXXE label alongside Sega Bodega, Shygirl and Coucou Chloe, and worked briefly in video game sound design.

Her sound pulls away from the club music of that circle toward something quieter: soft, layered vocals, choral-sounding synth pads and beats that often dissolve mid-song. The 2020 mixtape Galore, preceded by singles made with Flavien Berger, Mura Masa and Sega Bodega, established that approach.

She has continued to write, produce and arrange her own material, occasionally bringing in producers from the club scene while keeping the records built around intimacy and space, culminating in her debut album, Choke Enough, released in 2025.

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