Camp Kona Releases “Clean Slate” Just In Time For Summer
Camp Kona is the musical project of twenty year-old Ko Narter; the product of adolescent choirs and fireside nights at summer camp. She is a student at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University, but is still keeping close to her Bay Area roots.
Her debut single “Homesick” has organically amassed over 270k Spotify streams, and is even featured on Spotify’s Study Break playlist.
Just in time for summer, her new song shares the true story of summer love. Combined with her warm vocals and an overwhelming lyrical sense of longing, Narter attributes her formative experiences to her time at camp: In her latest single “Clean Slate,” she sings, “We were over by the full moon.” She says, “I love being outside and getting my hands dirty and camp is where I learned to love that stuff.”
As a biracial, Asian-American woman herself, Narter has recently found inspiration in artists like Rina Sawayama, Mitski, and Raveena. “There is a history of Asian appropriation of other cultures in music, as well as assimilation to the point where being Asian is never discussed,” she says. She strives to continue creating space for Asian and Asian-American stories in music without it becoming the defining factor of her music. However, there’s a struggle within that identity, she says:, “I’ve been categorized as white by Asian people, and as Asian by white people, and feel like neither and both most of the time.”
The song is focused on her voice and driven by simplistic drum beats and soothing guitar. And while the camp based romances may have an expiration date, with Camp Kona summer camp is an everlasting state of mind, and not just an isolated two months in the woods.
