OKHABIN

When OKHABIN finished his first EP, he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but equally as lost and aimless. Then he met his musical idol, M83, at a karaoke bar in LA and got invited to his house. The day before he went over, he lay on the couch and thought, “I hope he’ll tell me to go write an album…” The next day, that’s exactly what happened. The next two and a half years spent crafting the album proved to be the most challenging time of his life. He oscillates between the inflation and deflation of his ego, cheekily singing “You’ve Got Good Taste” in one track before turning around to sing “Can You Wish Me Well / When I Have a Different Name?”, pleading for support from his loved ones. Call it maturing. As he turns 31 and nears the completion of the album, he realizes the futility of the fight against time and the beauty of slowness and the present moment. He reins in the maximalist urgency and calmly finishes telling his story, and asks “What’s Beautiful?” as he sits quietly and enjoys the distant murmur of the neighbors and the fourth visit of the ice cream truck. OKHABIN spent 30 days alone in an Airbnb in Point Arena, on the northern coast of California, and wrote song after song, but only “Alone” and “Turn Around” made it onto the album. In “Alone,” where he reveals his complicated relationship with loneliness. The rest of the album was created in his Highland Park apartment with new friends who have since become close ones. Maybe solitude is overrated.