Harriet Shepherd

In Oklou ’s native French, madeleine de Proust is an expression used to describe those sudden jolts of memory, triggered by a scent, a song, a taste—a sensory encounter that suddenly flings you back in time. “It’s my favourite thing to experience,” beams the Paris-based musician. “Even more than falling in love.” These unexpected flashbacks, conjuring full worlds of forgotten feelings with instantaneous, visceral clarity, are rare but powerful. One of her first, she recounts, laughing, was ‘Red Red Wine’ by UB40. “When I first heard it back, the things that I felt in my heart…! It was so so intense.” To Oklou, real name Marylou Mayniel, the magic of the madeleine lies in its ephemerality. By its very essence, it is something that cannot be chased, re-created, anticipated or even overindulged in. “You cannot invent this sensation,” she explains. “It just hits you.”

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HS There's a perceived coldness to the figure of the engineer or mechanic—a distance from what's being handled.