Unflirt Interview

We all know that feeling: it's a seminal moment that you’ve been waiting for for a long time. One you’re sure is a defining juncture in your life. An out-of-the-ordinary turn of events; a snapshot of incurable joy; a happenstance that makes you feel more alive, more vital, more significant than you normally do.  

Yet in the midst of this high, there’s a lingering sense of the low to come. Before it’s even over, you’re dreading the ending, fearing reality’s bite when you’re back with only your own thoughts to chew on.

But angst breeds art. And Christine Senorin – aka whimsical acoustic guitar-clad riser Unflirt – is a beneficiary. It causes her a melancholy that’s only stitchable through the tapestry of her tender, dewy tunes. It’s the source material for much of her musical output. The breeding ground for her creativity, and her aptly named latest EP, “Fleeting”. 

It’s early afternoon as the sun peaks out from behind the clouds and beams into a meeting room of Rollacoaster HQ. Christine slightly swivels in the three-wheeled chair every now and then, both hands kept balmy by the steaming mug of ginger tea that rests between her fingers. Tonight, she plays one of the biggest shows of her career to date, supporting sadboi savant Del Water Gap at Camden’s iconic live music hub, the Roundhouse. This afternoon, she therapises with a jet-lagged journalist. 

“I can't deal with things ending,” the 25-year-old admits with a wry smile and a gentle shrug. “Even when things are happening, I already miss them. I can’t stand to know already that it's going to end.” 

Christine is ready to switch her gaze forward, she assures me. It’s pretty exhausting, after all, to insatiably seek a time that’s lost to the embers of memory. As she enters the next phase of her career – the most paramount yet in fact, the writing of her debut album – she’s focused on “growing as a person,” avoidant of her past proclivity for retrospection. 

Instead of dwelling on a rose-tinted past, she’s diving headfirst into a fresh artistic era, and the new music she’s writing for her inaugural full-length is representative of the fact, even down to intricacies like the way she’s using her voice. “It's definitely gone in a different direction than before,” she muses. “It’s definitely very new. I feel like even just the way I'm singing on each song, I feel so much more confident and grown. I've been working with really great producers who really push me every time I sing with my chest.” 

Christine is cocooning out of the timorous shell. As “a really shy teenager,” writing and performing never crossed her mind. But music – of all shades – was never far away. “My parents are Filipinos and Karaoke is a Filipino staple, so I grew up being forced to sing karaoke in front of the family at family parties and stuff. My dad taught me how to play guitar when I was like seven, he collects guitars. My mum made me do piano lessons obviously, very Asian parenting. But as soon as I got into secondary school I didn't even think about music at all.” 

As she neared adulthood, Christine found herself adjacent to artistry. A keen photographer, she’d snap press shots and live shows for musicians, before opting to study film and TV at university. But COVID hit, and with it her interest in her course teetered. In the quiet isolation of lockdown, music trickled out of her. She brought a mic and an interface with the remainder of her student loan. At first, she shared covers on Instagram, before plucking up the courage to release original music. Still, it was “in a very scared way – posting on Soundcloud and deleting Instagram, turning literally everything off my phone for two days because I didn't want to see what people thought.” 

It was the second song she gave to the world, the August 2020-released lushly swooning ballad “Crush”, that “popped off”—now sitting on north of 8.5 million streams. Christine consolidated her early acclaim with  a duo of EPs in 2023 – “Bitter Sweet” and “April’s Nectar” – before her third and most accomplished EP came last year. “Fleeting”, shared in November via Fader’s record label (“They're all amazing and all the people who work there are just so passionate and real. I definitely feel way safer at an indie,” she says on signing for the imprint) is, like all of her work so far, imbued by sentimentality. But that’s part of the appeal. It’s the wistful hue of her colour-wheel that enchanted a panoply of supporters. 

“I guess a lot of people can relate to this type of thing,” she reflects on what drew listeners into her pastel world. “How I started wasn't in the typical way of wanting to show myself too much. Even the way I sing, it's very soft and covered. I used to cover my voice with so many guitars because I'm a shy girl. But I feel like a lot of girls can relate and they see how I did start from my bedroom. It’s very relatable in the way that anyone can do it.”

The diffidence she felt in her formative years navigating artistry has metamorphosed into a burgeoning confidence, with “Fleeting” providing a sonic stepping stone. “I guess maybe because I was,” she laughs on the coming-of-age essence the project obtains. Her third EP shows an evolving lyrical sensibility, and a sharpening of sound. “I'm so proud of that project,” she says. “I feel like it's the one body of music that feels the most me out of everything else [I’ve released]. I feel like I really matured through that project and you can see in the way I reflect on certain things and in my approach to dealing with negative things, whereas let's say my younger self, I feel like the writing would be more direct and just straight to the point. Especially being in Brazil listening to all of the music, it’s just poetry, it’s amazing.”

The aforementioned nation in South America has been quintessential in her growth. Her partner is Brazilian, and she committed to a long-distance relationship which would see her spending the winter there for a few consecutive years. A born-and-bred Londoner, Christine’s first experience of elongated travelling influenced her deeply. “Growing up my mum always told me that I’d just want to go somewhere, everyday I’d wake up and ask where are we going? It's always been in me to want to get out of London and live somewhere else. But being in Brazil for long periods of time changed me a lot. Seeing how I would handle myself outside of this London bubble makes you realise how the world is so much bigger and there's so much more than out my daily routine here. There's so many different types of life there, it really opens you up to different perspectives of people's lives.” 

Matured, cultured, older, wiser, Christine embarks on her debut solo album with conviction and excitement. She might have come into artistry late, but she’s making up for lost time. As we all know about the things that we love—nothing else compares. “I just love how it makes me feel,” she smiles, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Just being able to turn experiences into these songs that can last forever. I'm such a nostalgic person, so to remember, that's a big thing. I write to remember things, I write to learn about myself as well. I feel like sometimes when I start writing a song, by the time I get to the end, I'm like, ‘Oh, okay, I get it now.’ And it gives me that understanding of myself that I somehow can't access otherwise.” 

Music is Christine Serontin’s therapy. Just don’t tell her therapist.