Ko Nakashima -- Hello

 

Taking care of the usual custodial duties on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I often come across some of the more obscure artists. One such artist that I encountered recently while going through the articles of a certain year was Ko Nakashima's（中島孝）"drop". Nikala was the writer for that one back in 2018, and "drop" was a track from Nakashima's album "Raft" from 2016. Collaborating with the Indonesian City Pop band ikkubaru, the singer-songwriter put out quite the sumptuous feast of cool urban contemporary of the times.

Well, I've decided to add to the Nakashima file by plucking out another track from "Raft". "Hello" was written and composed by the singer, and this time around, the sound seems more indies pop, perhaps even dreampop/shoegaze although I have to admit that I'm not such an expert on the genre. Still, it is a very reassuring and, yep, dreamy song, and it sure helps to stare at the album cover with the full-grown buck. Kinda has that "calm blue ocean" vibe to it as I'm listening.

Now, regarding the artist's name. In the past few years, YouTube has been getting these "Topic" channels which may be the YouTube algorithm fishing in various songs by certain popular singers and bands and forming a new channel out of them. I found "Hello" on Takashi Nakashima's channel, and indeed, the kanji for the given name（孝）can be read as either Ko or Takashi. Well, I wanted to get clarity on the proper pronunciation of his name for everyone's sake including that of nikala, so I checked things out. As it turns out, I not only found out his earlier stage name of Nakakoh (as nikala also indicated in her article) but through the Tower Records page regarding "Raft", the singer's name is truly Ko Nakashima with it also spelled out in katakana to make things absolutely crystal clear.