NoSo (Abby Hwong) shares a new song Honey Understand
New Partisan Records signing NoSo (real name, Abby Hwong) has shared a new song + lyric video entitled “Honey Understand”.
Deeply earnest and darkly groovy, the song is a preview of NoSo’s anticipated debut album due out later this year. Listen/watch below and feel free to share:
To try and escape themselves during the writing process, Abby occasionally turned to the solace of fantasy. “Honey Understand” is inspired by “insanely melodramatic screenplays” they would write each night before going to bed while cooped up during quarantine. They elaborate:“I was struggling through a very long bout of writer’s block. Because we were all trapped indoors, I had no human experiences or inspiration. Throughout quarantine, I would write an insanely melodramatic screenplay every night before bed to avoid scrolling through my phone. It was comforting to be excited about something without any pressure for it to be good.
After a break from music, the song came to me. A lot of the other music I was making was gentle and ambient, so I wanted to make something weird. while producing the song and muttering gibberish, I started singing lyrics that were storylines of the characters from my screenplay.
To me, writing from a character with a made-up storyline scratches the same part of my brain that creative writing in elementary school did. I would be so excited to share my stories with the class because I loved pretending to be someone else. Writing in this way opened up a sonic landscape I’d never explored before because it felt like I could separate myself from what I was making.”Abby is an LA-based, non-binary, Korean-American, musician and songwriter. Their single “Suburbia” was featured on All Songs Considered last fall, and was inspired by the predominately white Chicago suburb where Abby grew up (which also happens to be the town that ‘Mean Girls’ was based on). The stage name NoSo is shorthand for North/South: a nod to their Korean heritage, and the inane origin question (“Which Korea are you from?“) that so many Korean Americans inevitably face at some point in their lives. Abby’s music indirectly grapples with the insecurities and frustrations that can arise from the Asian American experience, feeling like a balm for the alienated.
NoSo graduated from USC’s music department (same program as Remi Wolf, Muna), and in 2019 they were a Tiny Desk Contest finalist. “Suburbia” has received support from Matt Wilkinson at Apple Music 1, as well as Spotify’s ‘Best Non-Binary+ Artists of 2021‘ playlist. NoSo has played shows with Bartees Strange, Cavetown, and Chloe Moriondo, and was recently announced as support for Yumi Zouma as well as Molly Burch on their upcoming spring US tours. Dates below.
Details on NoSo’s debut album coming soon.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
w/ https://partisanrecords.com/