The life of Nick Hinman gets a soundtrack with a first record to remember.
It can be said that good things don’t come to those who wait. It seems for the case of Nick Hinman, it’s the exact opposite. You see, Hinman has been biding his time perfecting one minute detail at a time. In between building a loyal fanbase from his two larger-than-life mixtapes in 2022 aswell as performing at sold-out headliners around East London, he has spent time in the studio writing his debut record and putting down some of his best ideas to the mixing console.
Now, it arrives, on the shores of a Summer which will no doubt set to be his biggest yet. Cobbling every episodic narrative in his life, Hinman – under the pseudonym of FAST MONEY MUSIC – finally delivers a completed album that has been patiently waiting in the shadows for the better part of a decade.
Occasionally glancing back to the nostalgic bands of the yesteryear, it careens from one sub-genre to the next. Sandwiched between the slacker jams of Television and pacific lo-fi temperaments of The Cleaners From Venus, we’re left with a freshening mixing pot of jagged post-punk done good.
And with that driving memory bank behind this novelistic photo album, if anything.. it feels authentically Nick Hinman. An enthused Nick coins it as a “part novel, part autobiography, part love story, part tragedy, and part comedy,” and throughout its’ full 10-track listing, he’s not far off.
Anchored on that looping pull of love and want, Round and Round kicks off with a yearn as it tussles with that “life is life’s itself” introspective spirit of finding oneself. It’s this tough nostalgia that resonates throughout as we find out on Unfortunately. Finding itself in the longing early New Order waves, it rings out a fragile relationship that could go without a moments’ notice. On the hook, Nick laments, “and I said, I don’t travel light / And she said to me, neither do I unfortunately.” Its settling motion sings like a late-night confession from two voices who have seemingly come to a conclusion without actually discussing it. A bittersweet moment that no doubt is the “part tragedy” to this expansive chronicle.
Lover Boy carries a further weight with a dark looming on the horizon. It captures a whirlwind of desire, all the while resolutely aware that it can go wrong. It’s sometimes this fear and waiting too long that unravels all – and the love lost becomes another distant memory. It’s certainly ambitious in delivery, with the horns on an explosive chorus befitting of any post-punk markup.
It’s also worth saying that FAST MONEY MUSIC was also built on collaboration. Along with it features John Waugh and George Daniel (The 1975), Jamie Reynolds and Steffan Halperin (Klaxons), Daniel Vildòsola (CMAT, Haelos), it features key vocal involvement. Art-pop mentor of the weird, Oliver Marson lends his pipes on Nevermind, a synth-fuelled spelling out. It perfectly orchestrates a brazen laissez-faire attitude to another relationship down the pan. The punky offset of Los Angeles is wickedly fun while on the flip-side, Bossa Supernova is a wiry funky expletive of jagged bass-lines and sexual tension. The more melodic narrative returns with Crocodile Tears, as we return to a swelling of synths and a melancholic haunt. It paints the picture of a master manipulator at the helm; possibly reinforcing the fact how easy emotions can sway better judgement.
The shared sentimentality on the record earlier is cut almost immediately with There Are No Words; a darker flair to the push and pull of love’s rope – coming from an individual who, for want of a better word, is just fed up with the whole blasted thing. One of the most poignant moments, however, comes in the form of Ashes. A dizzying show of lush instrumentation and inspirational swelling; made all the better with Zoë Bleu providing the female voice to the story. In its delivery, this certainly feels like the liberation song. A beautiful New Wave-inspired classic swansong of keeping the fire alive in a relationship, it lauds at a moment in time when everything was… just right – “we danced like a fire, I taste the ashes raining. We danced like a fire, let’s keep the ashes raining.” The release is cataclysmic – almost like all the sorrow and hurt in the past was all the more worth it for this one moment. The album ends on a pivotal message; one to take away with. The restless drive of Less Real sees the narrative take a turn to acceptance, all the while conscious that there may be parts to your life that you can’t control or understand – and that’s just fine. A blitzed rhythm and oscillating synths echo in the background while Nick shouts at the sky, “I’m just trying to find that burrowed thorn in my side, another day where reality is less real.” Fixating on identity – the albums’ main thesis – it strives for that love that just feels like you’re away in the clouds, living in a dream. And that longing will never go – until it does.
In his years on this planet, it seems FAST MONEY MUSIC has dived into some of life’s most difficult questions when it comes to love, identity and the rose-tinted view of nostalgia. Using Nick’s memory bank, FAST MONEY MUSIC delivers a perfectly grounded record as we go on a soul-searching art-rock journey to one day… feel something real.
mvm 
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