walking upstream…
Alok
sourcesWikipedia · Digital DJ Hub · We Rave You
Alok Achkar Peres Petrillo was born in 1991 in Goiânia, Brazil, the son of psytrance DJs and producers Swarup and Ekanta, and grew up inside the electronic-music scene his parents helped build around their Universo Paralello festival. Starting to perform as a teenager and going solo at nineteen, he became the leading popularizer of 'Brazilian bass' — a rounded, low-slung take on deep house — and broke through internationally with the 2016 single 'Hear Me Now.' A fixture near the top of DJ Magazine's global rankings through the late 2010s and 2020s, he built a run of melodic, emotive club hits including 'Never Let Me Go' and 'Ocean.'
the sound in question
2016
Hear Me NowAlok
walk the tributaries ↓
Jean-Michel Jarre1970s · Electronic / Ambient / New-age
Profiles of Alok trace his ear back to pioneering synthesizer artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, whose long-form, melody-first electronic music he grew up loving alongside the psytrance his parents made. The inheritance shows in how Alok tends to foreground a warm, singable synth line floating over atmospheric pads rather than reaching for aggression.
listen: upstream & here
1976
Oxygène, Pt. 4Jean-Michel Jarre
2018
OceanAlok
listen forCue the rippling, arpeggiated synth lead that carries Jarre's 'Oxygène, Pt. 4,' then drop into the airy melodic hook of Alok's 'Ocean' — both let a single hummable keyboard line, drifting over soft pads, do the emotional lifting.
Daft Punk1990s–2000s · House / French house / Electronic / Disco
Accounts of Alok's formative listening list Daft Punk among the electronic acts he grew to love, and the French-house mark shows in his glossy, four-on-the-floor productions built around a treated, repeating vocal phrase used as the central hook.
listen: upstream & here
2000
One More TimeDaft Punk
2016
Hear Me NowAlok
listen forPlay the pumping, filter-swept house of Daft Punk's 'One More Time,' then Alok's 'Hear Me Now' — listen for the same move, a single warm vocal line looped and lifted into a euphoric, hands-in-the-air drop.
The Prodigy1990s · Breakbeat / Big beat / Rave / Electronic
The same profiles note The Prodigy among Alok's early loves — a rave-era act whose raw, bass-heavy aggression sits at the opposite pole from his melodic side. You can hear that harder rave DNA in the distorted, low-end-forward drops of his more festival-facing tracks.
listen: upstream & here
1996
FirestarterThe Prodigy
2016
FuegoAlok
listen forThrow on the snarling, overdriven riff of The Prodigy's 'Firestarter,' then the pounding drop of Alok & Bhaskar's 'Fuego' — both build to a moment where a gnarled, distorted low end, not a melody, becomes the hook.