Oklou: Tiny Desk Concert

Oklou: Tiny Desk Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

Robin Hilton | October 29, 2025

Just a couple of days before arriving for her Tiny Desk, Oklou’s Marylou Mayniel flew with her five-month old baby from their Paris home to New York, where she met for the first time with an eight-piece choir to rehearse completely reimagined versions of four songs. The goal was to strip away the electronics and often heavy autotune heard across Oklou’s beguiling debut album, Choke Enough, while preserving the sense of sonic adventure.

By the time everyone got to D.C., they’d puzzled it out. The songs here rely largely on piano, an acoustic guitar and a nearly seven-foot marimba. The choir provides not only backing vocals but also pad-like textures and effects, including crackling fire created with wads of bubble wrap and small sticks collected just before the performance.

Casey MQ, who arranged the songs for this set, accompanies Oklou as they transform tracks like “blade bird” and “ict” from synth-heavy pop to deeply reflective, acoustic folk. The song “harvest sky” is slowed down and bare, with Oklou playing the main melody on a recorder. They also perform a version of “what’s good,” a previously unreleased song due out on a deluxe version of Choke Enough.

SET LIST

"ict"

"blade bird"

"what's good"

"harvest sky"

MUSICIANS

Oklou: vocals, marimba, guitar, piano, recorder

Casey MQ: keys, guitar, piano, electronics, background vocals

Gileann Tan: background vocals

Rachel Liss: background vocals

Emily Ostrom: background vocals

Maria Christina Jasmin Kopp: background vocals

Cristóbal Arias: background vocals

James Ozaki: background vocals

Jack Schmieg: background vocals

Max Parsons: background vocals

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer: Robin Hilton

Director/Editor: Maia Stern

Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell

Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter

Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Alanté Serene

Audio Engineer: Hannah Gluvna

Production Assistant: Dora Levite

Photographer: Maansi Srivastava

Tiny Desk Team: Kara Frame, Ashley Pointer

Series Editor: Lars Gotrich

Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

Executive Director: Sonali Mehta

Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton

#oklou #nprmusic #tinydesk

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