SOTW0324 Kenichiro Nishihara "Sincerely"

Ever since starting working remotely – from home, if you may – there's a constant need in my life: background noise.

Working from home has a lot of positives, but there's also a few negatives that can make your experience really shitty. I would say the worst of it is spending time all by yourself and let's be clear, it's not because you don't like yourself or that kind of self esteem / self love crap, but, instead, because of the lack of interaction with others. I think there's been enough discussion about how humans are social beings that there's no need to get deep into it, but it's always important to bring it up when talking about mental health. Anyway, the lack of interaction can hit you really hard if you live alone and spend 9 to 5 in a room or in front of a monitor.

Fortunately I don't live alone, but I'm mostly by myself during working hours. In that time, I've found soft background music to be a wonderful companion and really helps set a mood in my room. It brightens my days, in all honesty, so if you cannot spend some time with other humans in real life, I'd suggest at least trying to keep the silence to the minimum with some soothing music. In that regard, there are thousands of lo-fi videos on YouTube that you can use but, at least in my experience, they start to feel hollow after a few hours. I'm not really sure if that's because they are computer generated or something else, but I find them lacking soul and a little bit repetitive.

This week I discovered a song that opened up a new world for me. I won't try to sound like I know everything about it now, but I've found myself so fascinated by this genre and what it's done to my mood the last couple days that I'm pushing myself to learn more about it and it's artists. The song is "Sincerely" by Kenichiro Nishihara and it's completely instrumental. Even so, I know this song is about love.

I hope you find it soothing and calming as I do. Hopefully it will take a spot in your most played songs and if it already did let me know at @scaarg on X (ex-Twitter) as well as on Threads. Throw some recommendations, too.

What do you listen to during work?