NoSo - When Are You Leaving? (2025)

When Are You Leaving?, singer/songwriter/producer Baek Hwong’s second LP as NoSo, finds Hwong trading fantasy for reality. Previously, Hwong (they/he) sang about longing for “straight hips” and “simple limbs” in advance of their transition. Their debut Stay Proud of Me was an album-length daydream about what it would be like to fully embrace their transmasc identity, written mostly under quarantine restrictions. They released that record in 2022 to critical acclaim, with praise from NPR’s All Songs Considered, Paste, The Guardian, Notion, a performance at Tiny Desk and much more. But it’s one thing to wistfully yearn for transition, and another to actually do it.

So what happens after? What happens when you get what you've always wanted, and it comes with a new set of problems? Even if you do everything in your power to feel more comfortable in your skin, it’s hard to tell who sees you and who doesn’t. When Are You Leaving? tenderly but directly explores the internal effects of those relationships with a witty, mature lens. The aching from their past work has itself moved into something more thoughtful and measured, showing a more fully-formed, complex Hwong in the process.

Originating from Chicago before studying guitar and songwriting at the Thornton School of Music, and now based in Los Angeles, NoSo’s music deals with the alienation that comes at the intersection of his different identities. The stage name of NoSo itself comes from a question he’d get growing up in a largely white neighborhood (“North or South Korean?”) While he became known in LA for his talent with guitar, he ultimately decided to pursue writing his own deeply personal music. This is as personal as anything else he’s made.

He clarifies about the album: “While it’s intense in terms of lyrical content at times, it’s still triumphant, but in a more grounded and realistic way.” The joy doesn’t come from daydreaming, but from tangible, smaller victories like leaving toxic relationships and painful situations. That

title, When Are You Leaving? comes from the mental fortitude required to deal with or exit those dynamics altogether. The music gives those small successes the scale they deserve. The album glistens with spacious arrangements accompanied by the occasional saxophone and strings. A song like “Nara” could have been a 80s new-wave ball; the chorus where Hwong twists that name into a rhythmic chant is a crowd sing along in waiting.

As with Stay Proud Of Me, Hwong largely self-produces, increasingly comfortable with expanding the scope of his music. All the instruments were recorded remotely, but the cumulative effect is far from Hwong’s bedroom pop roots. The album shows Hwong’s diverse taste; “Dad Made Toast!” is an explosive experimental house-influenced track, while the piano- led opener “A Believable Boy” is quietly stunning in the vein of the best Boxer-era National songs. On “Sugar”, a co-production with Jack Tatum of indie project Wild Nothing, Hwong’s lush harmonies soar above a smooth disco groove, the negative space leaving room for the frustrated lyrics to really take root. Two songs later, there’s the genuinely heavy distorted guitars of “Don’t Hurt Me I’m Trying”, making good on Hwong’s TV on the Radio influence.

When Are You Leaving? finds Hwong coming into his own as a master songwriter. Themes of mental illness, platonic heartbreak, interpersonal + professional power dynamics are brought to life with vivid and specific imagery in a way that feels universal to listeners across genre, age, and orientation. On “You’re No Man” he’s in bed with a woman, but isn’t seen as himself; on “Nara”, he’s seen as himself, but doesn’t feel loved. We’re never really sure whether these are projected insecurities or what the other person really feels, but that just adds to the discomfort underlying the record’s lyrics. That’s until the partner on “But You Want Him”, beneath the saxophone and gated drums, confirms his worst fears: “I’m reminded of/How you missed white men/So simple and tame/Eyes dilating.” Unconventional one-liners throughout the album like “I still find you in/demeanors and tones” and “When you hurt me you listen/Therefore it could not be you” are bound to stick in the brain – just one example of Hwong’s clear strength of turning a phrase. Few songwriters are articulating such experiences as precisely as Hwong is.

The polished sound and the thornier lyrics don’t exist in opposition, instead complementing each other and creating a fuller picture of who Hwong is. The acoustic “Who Made You This Sweet” gently glides, interweaving countermelodies as Hwong playfully describes trying on masculinity, puffing their chest out. Yet that doesn’t fit either, as they put it: “I’ve realized my energy is still pretty feminine, but there was this period of time where I felt like I was trying to embody these stereotypes for masculinity because of the way I present.” At the core of the album is a longing to feel understood; the seeming contradictions aren’t really contradictions at all, just different parts of a complete human being. That knack for nuance makes When Are You Leaving? a unique achievement in detailing the minutiae of life’s complexities – and all the better, you can dance to it.