Desire is the most curious architect. It builds rooms we didn’t ask for, corridors that loop back on themselves, entire landscapes shaped by impulse rather than intention. Fast Money Music—the moniker and vessel for American-born, East London-based songwriter-producer Nick Hinman—operates inside that geography with unnerving clarity. His work lives where instinct rubs up against restraint, where wanting becomes both the propulsion and the trap. What does it mean to feel haunted by the things you chase? To crave connection while suspecting you might dissolve the moment someone looks too closely? Fast Money Music approaches the questions that have made and unmade centuries with a kind of bruised pragmatism. Or maybe the music simply animates the torment of the in-between, that space where instinct and self-work collide like mismatched weather fronts.

“Lover Boy,” the newest single and the opening signal of his self-titled debut album Fast Money Music, sits right at the center of that current. It’s a track that flickers between bravado and fragility, a swaggering pulse that cracks if you press a thumb to it. The song takes a missed connection and mutates it into mantra—playful, undoubtedly, but ghosted by hesitation, self-doubt, and the kind of yearning that feels more like vertigo than romance. Recorded between Hackney Road Studios and his own Dalston hideout, the track threads the irreverent spikiness of Love and Rockets with the rhythmic tightness of ESG and the off-kilter charm of The Modern Lovers. Jamie Reynolds’ bassline stalks forward, John Waugh’s sax shivers at the edges, Steffan Halperin’s drums snap like exposed nerves; together they form a world taut with contradiction.

Hinman calls the sound “tough nostalgia,” and the phrase lands: these are songs that remember too much, that excavate old wounds only to stitch them with something unexpectedly sweet. Across two EPs, a Paris debut, a Lee Jeans campaign, and championing from BBC, Apple Music, and a constellation of indie tastemakers, Fast Money Music has built a miniature universe without relying on the usual machinery—no overcooked hype cycles, no algorithmic pandering. Just devotion, earned slowly, person by person.

We sat down with Fast Money Music to talk ghosts, impulse, swagger, restraint—and the making of Fast Money Music, the album that promises to pull all these contradictions into focus.

“Lover Boy” is about missed connections. Was there a real-life missed connection that inspired the track, or was it something else?

There was a real connection I had in mind when I wrote “Lover Boy.” It wasn’t quite a missed connection yet, but it wasn’t fully realized either. It lived in that blurry in-between space where everything hangs on a “what if.” That phrase can be dangerous territory. There is always the duality of what could be gained versus what could be lost, and timing dictates everything. I knew I didn’t want it to slip into becoming a missed connection, but I also knew I had work to do on myself first. Whether the timing would ever line up was the real question.

‍You’ve described the track as “controlled chaos.” How do you approach translating internal conflict—passion, hesitation, desire—into your music?

The “controlled chaos” of ‘Lover Boy’ came from allowing the song to breathe and letting it live in that erratic uncertainty. I usually pull conflict through an instrument before I put it into words. I rarely sit down thinking, “I want to write about this specific thing.” The lyrics tend to arrive in response to the melodies, and the melodies come from whatever instrument I start with. If I begin on a keyboard or piano, things lean bittersweet. If I start on guitar, it becomes more angular. If I pick up a bass, it turns rhythmic and cyclical. When I leave enough space for it, whatever internal conflict I am carrying surfaces on its own through a kind of abstract, stream-of-consciousness lyricism. I only understand the story once I step back, and sometimes it takes a day before I realize that this is what the song was trying to say.

‍You recorded “Lover Boy” between Hackney Road Studios and your own space in Dalston. How did those environments—the professional studio vs. your personal creative home—impact the sound and experimentation on the new record?

When my co-producer Mikko Gordon and I sat down to define the record, we landed on a few key ideas, and one of the main production concepts was the phrase “human machine.” I had written all the demos to the grid, meaning everything was locked to a click. We decided to strip that away and record the backbone of each song live at Hackney Road Studios, off-click, with real players setting the tempo and letting it breathe and fluctuate. After those sessions, everything was tempo-mapped and I brought the tracks back to my studio in Dalston, where I layered guitars, synths, vocals and other overdubs. The result is something that feels very raw, human and alive at its core, but finished in a space that brings in the DIY, synthetic character of my original demos.

‍How would you describe the sonic identity of your debut album, “Fast Money Music”?

The sonic identity came directly from the phrases Mikko and I developed at the start. We wrote down “human machine,” “organic synthetic,” “tough nostalgia,” and “future past.” Most of them are juxtapositions, which gave the album a clear intention. Those opposing ideas created a natural tension, and the sound of the record became about finding a balance between them.

‍You’ve described the album’s sonic palette as “tough nostalgia.” What sounds, eras, or emotional reference points created that nostalgia in “Fast Money Music”?

“Tough nostalgia” was our litmus test. It is about balancing the bittersweet pull of looking back without getting stuck there, and keeping a certain grit so it never becomes overly sentimental. There is a word, anemoia, which describes longing for a time you never personally experienced, and that was something I wanted to avoid. While I was writing the album, I was listening to a lot of Cleaners from Venus, and I have always loved Martin Newell’s early 80s DIY approach and the hissy warmth of his recordings. Guided By Voices captured that in the 90s as well. I wanted to borrow some of that spirit, but not recreate a specific era. The goal was to take those textures and anchor them firmly in the present.

‍Where do you see Fast Money Music evolving next, and what do you hope listeners understand about who you are on this debut?

My intention is to keep peeling back the layers of Fast Money Music to get closer to what feels most honest and authentically me; no facades, no smoke and mirrors. Art is genuine when you make it for yourself. That means giving the project room to evolve on its own, trusting where it wants to go, and letting go of any expectations around it. That said, I’m excited for what comes next.