30-Second Overview: Hello Nico is a Taiwanese indie band formed in Taipei in 2013. Members: vocalist Chan Yu-ting, guitarist Li Yong-en, bassist Chen Hsin-po, and drummer Guan Hui-chung. Their song "Flower" won StreetVoice's annual chart in 2014; their debut full-length album Familiar Desolation was nominated for Best New Artist at the 27th Golden Melody Awards in 2016. Known for their "suppressed, self-absorbed" Dream Pop / Indie Rock sound — Chan Yu-ting's voice is the core identifier. After going largely quiet from 2016, they returned in September 2024 with EP Plan B: If We Come Back, Let's Watch the Sea Together.
Chan Yu-ting said: "Making music — the hardest part is fighting with yourself."1
In September 2024, Hello Nico's new EP appeared quietly on streaming platforms, titled Plan B: If We Come Back, Let's Watch the Sea Together. Almost eight years had passed since their last complete work.2
And just like that, they were back.
The Summer of "Flower"
In 2014, StreetVoice's annual chart winner was a song called "Flower" — accumulating over 120,000 plays.3
No major label, no television exposure — just organic reach on an independent music platform. Hello Nico had only been around for just over a year at that point: vocalist Chan Yu-ting, guitarist Li Yong-en, bassist Chen Hsin-po, and drummer Guan Hui-chung, four people under the label Black Market Music Production. The same year, the band won Best New Group at Singapore's Fresh Music Awards with their debut EP Floating City.4
Taiwan's indie music scene began to know the name "Hello Nico."
Taiwan's Most Suppressed Tenderness
"Suppressed and self-absorbed" — said as a compliment.
Music critics used those four words to describe Hello Nico's sonic texture: a Dream Pop shell containing a shoegaze-style heaviness beneath; Li Yong-en's synthesizer layers building with distorted guitar feedback; Chan Yu-ting's voice riding above — gentle, but with strong penetration.5
The themes never shy away: urban alienation, social control, the harm people do to each other. Chan has said: "To escape social control, you have to know who you are. When I reject it, I choose to write it into a song."5 Her compositional method deliberately preserves ambiguity: "I don't like to say things too definitively. I lean toward a kind of abstraction — letting everyone interpret the meaning of the work themselves."1
Music's function is companionship — letting listeners know someone else is bearing these things alongside them.
The Golden Melody Year
In January 2015, Hello Nico released their debut full-length Familiar Desolation — eleven tracks that topped iNDIEVOX sales charts for four consecutive weeks.6 The following year, the album earned them a Golden Melody Award nomination for Best New Artist.7
Nominated, but not winning.
Over the next two years, they were working on something else: producing their own music. The 2016 EP Close Your Eyes featured a collaboration with Grammy-winning string quartet SEMIFUSA, adding classical string textures — the first time Hello Nico had fully controlled the production side. In 2017, they performed at SXSW.7
Then news grew sparse.
Eight Years of "Fighting With Yourself"
In 2018, there was still _Dear Myself_.8
After that, eight years.
In a 2024 interview, Chan Yu-ting talked about that period: "In the past, I was easily overcome by anger on stage. Now I'm slowly rehabilitating — rebuilding a healthy relationship with singing through self-encouragement."9 Exhaustion with making music, doubt about her own voice — these are not struggles unique to Hello Nico, but they chose silence as their response.
Not dissolution. Stagnation.
Plan B: If We Come Back, Let's Watch the Sea Together
On September 10, 2024, _Way Back_ went online — reportedly a song that took ten years to finish.2
The new EP Plan B uses a space love story as its frame: two astronauts, after leaving, returning to Earth. The return posture is not explanation — it is the choice to set out again. Chan Yu-ting said: "I missed the stage."9
The person who once tied singing and anger together now says: "Slowly rehabilitating."
Hello Nico is still on stage.
Further Reading:
- Ao and Mountain (凹與山) — Another Taiwanese indie female voice from the 2010s, capturing urban emotion through synthesizers
- VH (Vast & Hazy) — Another gentle path in the same indie scene of the era, the "exit band"
- No Party for Cao Dong (草東沒有派對) — Same 2010s Taiwanese indie scene; anger and suppression as counterpoint
- Ko Chih-tang (柯智棠) — Another Taiwanese indie singer who returned after seven years of silence; the same "slow-tempo creator" spectrum
- Chi Po-hao (紀柏豪) — Hello Nico's early synthesizer player, later moved into sound art; MIT Schnitzer Prize first-place winner
References
- Punchline.asia — Taiwan Musicians Series: Interview with Hello Nico — Chan Yu-ting's words: "The hardest thing about making music is fighting with yourself" and "I don't like to say things too definitively," circa 2016.↩
- Hello Nico — Plan B EP (Universe Digital) — Plan B: If We Come Back, Let's Watch the Sea Together, released September 10, 2024; Way Back reportedly took ten years to complete.↩
- Hello Nico — StreetVoice Artist Page — "Flower" won StreetVoice's 2014 annual chart with 120,000+ plays; official band releases and discography.↩
- Singapore Fresh Music Awards Official Website — 9th edition (2014); Hello Nico won Best New Group with EP Floating City.↩
- Womany — To Escape Social Control, You Have to Know Who You Are — Chan Yu-ting's words: "To escape social control, you have to know who you are. When I reject it, I choose to write it into a song."↩
- StreetVoice Packer — Hello Nico Band Introduction — 2015: Familiar Desolation topped iNDIEVOX sales charts for four consecutive weeks.↩
- 27th Golden Melody Awards (2016) — Hello Nico nominated for Best New Artist with Familiar Desolation; band also performed at SXSW 2017 (confirmed in SXSW official schedule).↩
- Hello Nico — Dear Myself (Spotify / KKBOX) — Dear Myself released June 2018; Gill Chang Remix version released December 2018.↩
- VERSE — The Renewed Energy of Long-Awaited Returns and Fighting Hard (Hello Nico × Blueburn) — Chan Yu-ting on stage fear, slow rehabilitation, and "I missed the stage," 2024.↩