Now Ex is an alt-pop band from East London and the musical pseudonym for singer-songwriter and film director Nick Hampson. Nick started the band as both an outlet for his songwriting, but also a vehicle for creating music for his own upcoming feature films.
Now Ex has a distinct cinematic quality to its sound, partly due to Nick’s background as a classically trained musician and singer as well as lyrics that are honest and poetic about life as a young person living in a metropolis. Now Ex is in collaboration with friend and film composer, Harry Brokensha. Together they have created an EP that encapsulates a cinematic pop soundscape, with no two tracks sounding the same but yet a distinct uniformity.
The first single from their upcoming EP release, ‘No Coming With You’, is an honest and relatable story with clear influences from James Blake and The Japanese House as it displays an atmospheric aesthetic, whilst still maintaining an electronic drive which keeps you hooked throughout.
“This song is about a fast-paced affair between two people who have recently come out of long term relationships that ended for different reasons. Although full of lust and excitement for something new, perhaps even illusions of love, they both know that it can’t last and that they will ultimately be alone again.” – Nick Hampson, Now Ex
Nick’s main collaborator is an up-and-coming film composer and multi-instrumentalist Harry Brokensha. Harry and Nick met on their first day of university in Oxford where they were both drawn to the city’s legendary music scene. They started a band and quickly made a name for themselves in the student music scene and further afield, headlining Oxford’s biggest venue, the O2 Academy, after 6 months of playing together.
Nick stepped away from music briefly and began making a name for himself in the film industry after graduating, becoming one of the youngest directors to ever sell a feature-length project to one of the world’s major streaming services not long after. Harry and Nick were still working closely together over the years, with Harry composing the scores to Nick’s first two movies. This collaboration across cinema and music has evolved into their newest project, Now Ex.
The Now Ex debut EP, due out later this year, is alternative pop at the intersection of electronic and orchestral, giving it an unusual but infectious quality. No two songs quite sound the same and there is rarely a specific genre underpinning it. The music is glued together by Hampson’s versatile, often soaring vocals and honest lyrical style with tracks that take on an orchestral flare and electronic energy making them unmistakably alt-pop songs, with their singable choruses and fresh, synth-heavy pop production.
Thematically, this is what might typically be called a ‘break up EP’, with many of the songs in some way a reflection of a disintegrating relationship. But it’s never quite as simple as that, and many broader themes run through the music. As the name Now Ex suggests, time is a core theme at the heart of the music and is very often a commodity that’s running out. Although it has an overriding darkness tonally, there is also optimism present in the music. The cyclic nature of behavior and time starts as a negative observation. But as the EP evolves it later becomes a comforting and continual presence, resulting in a sort of peace being found, even if temporary.
Listen to “No Coming With You,” by Now Ex here.
