Remon Nakanishi collaborates with Suzumeno Tears

Remon Nakanishi occupies an intriguing space in Japan’s modern music landscape, moving between folk performance, research and visual art. Known primarily within the world of minyo and Bon Odori music, he’s become one of the most visible voices associated with Goshu Ondo, a song-and-dance tradition from Shiga Prefecture. The style is closely tied to Bon Odori, the communal summer festivals held across Japan to console the spirits of the dead and bring communities together through music and dance.

Alongside his work as a singer, he’s spent years as a field worker and researcher of traditional performing arts while also maintaining a parallel practice as a painter, creating all of the cover artwork for his own music. His approach to folk music developed long before his emergence as a recording artist; as a teenager he became fascinated with grassroots performance cultures, travelling across Japan to take part in Bon Odori gatherings.

These festivals, where singing and dancing played out collectively in public space, left a lasting mark on his creative thinking and around the same time, he was producing paintings and contemporary dance works shaped by these experiences. After nearly two decades working across high art, underground culture, and folkloristic research, Remon’s career as a singer began to crystallise through his involvement with Monogatari Uchūno Kai.

His recorded work began during a moment when live performance had largely disappeared, with festivals and concerts halted by the pandemic, album production shifted into Agatha’s home studio, resulting in Hinano Iezuto, released in 2022 and produced by Agatha. Together with Sparrow’s Arrows Fly so High in 2024, the album by Suzumeno Tears, it signalled an important moment for pop music based in local and vernacular sensibilities in post-pandemic Japan.

Now, as the second single following “Yattokose,” his rendition of “Kawasaki” revisits a traditional Bon Odori folk song from Gujo in Gifu Prefecture. The recording features Brazilian drummer Daniel Baeder, whose playing introduces the rhythmic feel of baião from northeastern Brazil and around that groove float guitar arpeggios and a string duet arranged by Masanori Hattori on double bass, elements that highlight the melodic contours of the original tune. Suzumeno Tears return with backing vocals, adding a sonic element of mystical harmony, while the session was engineered by Kohsuke Nakamura, known for his work with Yuta Orisaka.

Flowing with the flicker of delicate guitar notes and warm string textures, a melancholic folk scene arrives as Remon’s expressive vocals arrive. Quivering with emotion, his leads glide with misty melodies, contrasted by the graceful sweep of backing vocals from Suzumeno Tears, casting a transportive and truly enchanting musical experience that reframes traditional Japanese folk music in an engaging an utterly spectacular way.

With the patter of percussion adding a gentle grooving sway, the song rolls with subtly hypnotic energy and the interplay between Remon Nakanishi and Suzumeno Tears carries the song through stunning vocal performance. The single forms the second entry in a series of five monthly releases leading toward Nakanishi’s second full-length album. Taken together with his earlier work, it continues to mark him as a revivalist of festival music and popular entertainments that have circulated across Japan since premodern times and at the same time, his practice places those traditions firmly in the present, opening new possibilities for vernacular expression in contemporary music.

Listen to Kawasaki below

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