Other People / Germany / 2024
Okokon returns to Other People with his sophomore album, 'Offering', delving deeper into the lush and cinematic soundscapes he first explored on his debut album, 'Turkson Side'. While primarily working in visual arts, Africanus Okokon, who records under his surname, bridges his artistic practices in 'Offering', using his masterful collage techniques to create his most personal work yet. Defying easy categorization, the album melds influences from dream pop, avant-garde folk, psychedelia, trip hop, and dub, with traces of field recordings seamlessly blended throughout to form a cohesive whole.
'Offering' sees Okokon confronting and negotiating a sudden and unexplained death that occurred in his childhood and the complex emotions left in its aftermath, acting as his main inspiration when making the album. This ambiguity is something that permeates throughout, with Okokon wanting to explore the ambivalence and sometimes uneasiness of contradicting emotions appearing simultaneously, alluded to in the album title. This is also reflected in how the album tracks each inhabit different narrators with varying perspectives on the same events. The result being a hauntingly beautiful album, with recurring themes of death, growth, sacrifice and spirituality ever present.