The Sydney prodigy Flowerkid (twenty-year old singer, songwriter and producer Flynn Jorge Sant) has just released his debut EP ‘Everyone Has A Breaking Point’ and it is a stark reflection of a three year journey Sant has experienced coming out as transgender. Filled at times with a bleak vision of toxic masculinity, suicidal ideation and struggle, there is a developing thread of empowerment and resilience expressed through the most beautiful and deeply personal songs
‘It’s Happening Again’, featuring LA-based Australian-native KUČKA, is an ethereal track, with the vocal interplay between Flowerkid and KUČKA sublime as they sing over a syncopated beat that floats like a series of bubbles.
Flowerkid has put his very heart and soul into the lyrics:
This new single, featuring the beautiful KUČKA, and what will follow soon afterwards, has been everything I have thought about for a very long time. And this body of work is a feeling that has been bottled up inside me for all of my existence on this earth. This song is so very important to me.
My process of healing comes in three. ‘It’s Happening Again’ is my first step. I need to confront the very conniving voices that circle throughout my head. They tell me I can’t say what I’m about to say. So I know what I have to do, and that’s to shout on the rooftops of every hardship I’ve ever had to climb. In the times of finding myself, I’ve had to lose myself first. And I’ve finally found that this loss of control was absolutely necessary.
I want us to lose ourselves hand in hand, on this ethereal, spiritual, and timeless musical journey I created for us. Please listen and watch, as my internal and external struggles flourish into bloom. I can’t wait for you to hear this excerpt of my heart and soul.
The result is stark and expressive lyricism, delivered in the most heart-rending tones and imbued with a beauty and stature:
I feel it hard, I feel the hurt, I said,
It’s happening all over again,
And I’ve got no control this time,
Help me!
I feel it in my chest and in my eyes,
It’s happening again tonight,
And I’ve got no control this time.
Flowerkid writes from experiences of childhood pain and trauma that result in something naked and emotional. The accompanying video, directed by Barun Chatterjee, is beautifully shot – scenes of claustrophobia contrasted with night time drives and parties, relationships and isolation:
‘Miss Andry’ comes from personal childhood trauma, expressed with veracity and and an instrumental shimmer reinforcing the tone. It confronts unpalatable images in an air of heartbreaking beauty. Sant says:
This song roots from a hatred and distrust for men that developed from such a young age.
Hence the title – a distorted form of the word misandry, hatred for men. However the lyrics suggest this is manifested more bleakly in a form of self-hatred. Powerful and confronting, yet with some optimism:
I will always feel this inadequacy with any cisgender man … but when I made this song, I needed to regroup and basically take responsibility. I’d say, you know, ‘It isn’t healthy to be thinking these things. I feel this way because of the events that happened in my life and childhood trauma I’ve experienced. But it’s not an excuse to hate all men’.
Deep within, therefore, is a flickering beacon of hope and survival, if not empowerment.
The accompanying video, directed by Madeleine Purdy, reflects a searing struggle – partially set in a shadowy boxing ring where there is not other protagonist and partially following Sant being ominously shadowed in dark alleys – it is a brutally honest portrayal of internal suffering and pain.
‘Vodka Orange Juice’, was written in one sitting from inside a caravan parked by the coastline, is about defending transition to those who do not understand it. Over a simple piano base, Sant’s voice is angelic and yearning, velvet and emotional: absolutely heartbreaking as he sings the girls want a real boy. Sant says of the catharsis experienced in writing the track:
It was hugely cathartic writing this song. I hope when other people are listening, they feel the same way. If you feel like you aren’t accepted for who you are, please know that you are loved.
Final track ‘I Met The Devil At 4 years Old’ is layered and nuanced as Sant half sings half raps about how religion and faith never provided the necessary emotional support for his development – I had to do it all on my own.
‘Everyone Has A Breaking Point’ is at times raw and bleak, honest and emotional – but above all and throughout the darkness, it is a shining beacon of light for anyone who has ever felt different, anxious or afraid. It is a blessed panacea against normality and uniformity, cloaked in the most anthemic and joyous pop embedded with threads of diversity and inclusivity.
‘Everyone Has A Breaking Point’ is available to download and stream here or though the link below:
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