12 November 2022
Newsdesk
For The Flints, their debut EP 100 Million Lightyears – shared today on their own Two Minute Music, is more than an artistic opening statement but a reclamation of their creativity. With the release arrives a self-styled remix of latest single ‘Right Kind Of Love’, a showcase of their instinct for future-thinking floorfillers.
“It’s important for us that we inject ourselves in that world,” says George, with a DJ residency in London and Manchester in the works for next year. “It’s a dual journey to go on.”
A debut containing galaxies, not beholden to any single era but somehow evocative of all of them, 100 Million Lightyears works on a grand scale; timeless not only in the sense that it transcends the past, but in the way that it sounds like the first, dazzling transmission from an unfathomable future.
Its five tracks move between streamlined psychedelia and flamboyant dance-pop with theatrical flair. Opening track “Starship” proves that The Flints have a showman’s instinct for tension and release. Within sixty seconds, we are passengers on an entire sonic voyage, lifted from the monotony of this earth and plunged into The Flints’ technicolour dreamscape. Here, percussion strikes like exploding supernovas; synths twinkle like onlooking stars. As this opera reaches an almost suffocating crescendo, suddenly, there is relief – a seamless, twin flame harmony.
Together, identical twin brothers George and Henry Flint are something of a sonic swiss-army knife, having spent years as producers, songwriters and composers conjuring the visions of others. This ability to blend, chameleon-like, into the soundscapes of artists including Jean Dawson, Debnever and Tkay Maidza has served them well, but they soon started to feel disconnected from the underlying passion that brought them so far in the first place. The brothers were like astronauts cast adrift, estranged from their mission.
Having relocated to London from their home city of Manchester in 2020, the pair spent a year writing relentlessly from their respective apartments, inching closer to their creative ideal with each track. But it would be Canadian producer KOZ (Kendrick Lamar, Dua Lipa, Madonna), who would be the first to listen to the material and push for the brothers to commit to it. He would go on to be their closest collaborator on the EP, and with his guidance, brought all five of its tracks into the same orbit.
This project is only the blueprint for the brothers. “This is a collection of songs we feel represent us, a snapshot of a moment in time,” they explain. But already, as we’ve just arrived at their first body of work, The Flints are already 100 Million Lightyears ahead.
