NoSo: love, duality & the in-between

<WRITER> Emily Stephens
<PHOTOGRAPHY> Marc Baker, NoSo, Earth Agency, Islington Assembly Hall

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Ate from the garbage / as a lesson / don’t recall it / must’ve dreamed it then

Confessional lyricism is a practice of poetic honesty. Singer-songwriter NoSo [he/they] — working in tender indie folk, rock, and dreampop — stepped onto stage in London this February, the first of four UK dates on their European tour, supporting their new album, When Are You Leaving?. We arrived at Islington Assembly Hall with full dinner bellies, a fifteen-minute Uber driver delay, and the honour of standing beneath high ceilings flecked with silver, slow-turning disco-ball light.

Surrounded by quietness, solitude and the suburbs of Chicago, NoSo grew up in a world of lawns and long sidewalks. Learning early how space can feel expansive but isolating, learning through lyricism, and learning guitar — by 16, they were moving to LA and creating songs with layers of lived experience. Their music moved with them but kept its form. Melodic. Searching. Suspended between here and elsewhere.

Duality can be a creative method. And NoSo’s music contains multitudes — longing and its limits; strength and its fragility, openness and restraint. All in a language of what if.

THE ARTIST

NoSo (Baek Hwong) is short for north or south. The name holds geography and metaphor — a response to the repeated question of where in Korea they are from. And their music sits between worlds — Korean American, queer, and proudly explicit about identity and relationships. Colin Petch of MagNorth calls this ‘a statement: an insistence on existing between categories, borders, and easy resolutions.’

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CONFESSION

Art and confession behave the same way.

Both tend to rely on what is withheld. Sometimes a confession isn’t a statement, but an arrangement that tiptoes the line between what is shown and what is concealed. NoSo writes inside this space. His songs mirror a quiet discipline of self-reflection, and a desire to listen.

To listen to the self, to small shifts in feeling, or the nuances of others. To confess to care. That care poured from NoSo’s gig. His songwriting is sensitive, considered — observing the bigger picture while capturing the smaller inflections. The expanse of Islington Assembly Hall softened into something familiar.

From song to song, this tone stayed unforced. Belonging felt effortless inside the venue, and conversation between NoSo and us (the audience) felt unguarded and honest. No part was unauthentic.

WHEN ARE YOU LEAVING?

In their new album, When Are You Leaving? NoSo turns confession sideways. Their songs a shifting reflection of identity, longing, and the slow work of self-understanding — there are moments of relief in an acceptance of life’s uncertainty, or a lack of control. Live, this became a multifaceted dialogue with the audience. We were inside its unfolding.

I look up to rewind, a believable boy / not polite, not a pity

NoSo’s music hits self-definition with its refusal. Gender identity — in its making and unmaking — moves with deliberate strength and resilience. Masculinity is something rehearsed, provisional. But beneath: the need for bare expression without surveillance. That’s what gave the gig its depth: a blend of distinct talent and what it means to be unafraid, meet the world with self-awareness, and challenge convention.

‘Don’t hurt me, I’m trying’ carries a contradiction — its directness is undercut by the sense that sincerity requires performance in being understood, while ‘Nara’ displaces identity, addressing the self as partial, just out of reach and never quite enough.

These moments hold the album in an in-between. Feeling is suspended. Reaching out does not touch.

His songwriting is sensitive, considered — observing the bigger picture while capturing the smaller inflections.

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LOVE / LYRIC

Love in NoSo’s lyricism isn’t in a rush.

It rests. It observes. In ‘Sugar’, sweetness stretches thin and makes room for truth. Grief and gratitude coexist. And the set was wide open — offering space to the audience that felt like an invite. Warm lighting. Pinks, blues, apricot.

When Are You Leaving? rarely declares love outright, but traverses it like wide, uneven land. It’s attentive, wriggling into hard-to-reach places, noticing, memorising. And like this approach to love, NoSo played without flourish. No distractions. No exaggerated theatrics. The hall was a ground for connection, care, and considered sound. Every song was straight out of the heart.

After the set, I met NoSo briefly — they were on vocal rest. I told them how their music had been a steady, much needed companion through the last year. Grief, change, and a life reset at play — their album on repeat in the background.

Spotify | Substack

<01> NoSo on stage at Islington Assembly Hall 17 February 2026 ©Marc Baker
<02> NoSo pressshot(Baek Hwong) ©Earth Agency/NoSo
<03> London was NoSo’s biggest headline show to date ©NoSo
<04> NoSo on stage in London performing the first of 4 UK dates on their European Tour ©Marc Baker
<05> Islington Assembly Hall, London exterior ©Islington Assembly Hall
<06> NoSo on stage at Islington Assembly Hall in front of a sold out crowd ©Marc Baker
<07> NoSo album Stay Proud of Me released ©NoSo

In ‘Sugar’, sweetness stretches thin and makes room for truth.. Grief and gratitude coexist.

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