Autumn 2006, and Joshua Wong, songwriter for up-and-coming Hong Kong band Noughts & Exes, was at a crossroads. The band's debut - and for all intents and purposes, Wong's solo - album Act One, Scene One had local indie aficionados salivating. The video for lead single A Minor to Major was playlisted by music TV channels across Asia and the West.
Yet Wong wasn't comfortable with the dynamic, and the group disbanded before truly kicking into gear. 'We simply couldn't pull off the album well enough live, or at least, we didn't think we could,' Wong says now.
'The musicians that came together for the live incarnation, for the most part, were in the awkward position of having to play stuff they weren't involved in writing.
'I think unless there's a shared ownership of something that's being built, it's very hard for everyone to continue to pour their hearts into it. Especially if it's something creative. I've never liked the idea of being a solo artist because I see music being something better shared than done alone. It's the collaborative community that really makes making music something worthwhile for me.'
After a three-year hiatus, Wong set about rebuilding. Reuniting first with his longtime live collaborator Gideon So (keyboards, vocals, glockenspiel and melodica) the pair worked on fresh material over the summer of 2009. By the end of the year a new line-up was formed and early this year an album started to come together. Act One, Scene One isn't so much an introduction as a prologue to the story, which now begins with their sophomore LP The Start of Us, released this weekend.
Along with Wong and So, the collective 'us' of Noughts & Exes Mk II comprises drummer Alex Bedwell (with whom Wong also writes movie scripts), cellist Marianne Bunton, singer/percussionist Kerrie-Anne Butler and newest recruit Winnie Lau on bass.