Tintin’s “Faithless” is a volatile vision of excess and desire for the dolls

Abrasive bass and aggressive drums define the raw spoken word sensation that is “Faithless”. Choppy kicks and ballroom Ha crashes build in succession. Captivating are the vocal stylings of 26-year-old Tintin Freeman, a self-described wordsmith, her poetic lyricism punctuates like a queer manifesto. A “love letter to every doll ever told she wasn’t enough.” It is an unpredictable track, wild and reckless, though full of confidence. It exudes youthful energy, the kind you leave behind for your boring office 9 to 5. But as Tintin’s breakout is anything to observe, who’s to say a girl can’t indulge in a little bit of chaos?

Her sonic affirmations read as such: “My vision is black it’s tainted. My body looks better naked. My morals are fucked I’m faithless. My moans aren’t real I faked it. My sex is hot I tape it. My face is perfect take it. My eyes are clear as day shit. My enemies think I won’t make it.”

Tintin has been writing since her uni days. A lot of it, she says, “came from trauma as a way to expel darkness.” Intentionally provocative, grotesque and graphic, writing was, at first, a form of catharsis to let out all the negativity she was experiencing onto paper. “I was quite depressed when I was a lot younger, most of the themes of my writing surrounded that.” In 2024, she self-published her own poetry book, She Dreams of Sweet Castration, and started to grow an online community surrounding her pen. It is around this time when she was noticed by none other than FKA twigs. “I met her through my partner Parma Ham, and we kind of hit it off. She started following me on Instagram, and she saw that I would post my poetry and my writing, I guess it just resonated with her.”

An invitation to write on twigs’ Grammy-winning album EUSEXUA, specifically the Burberry glitch cut “Drums of Death”, is, essentially, what introduced Tintin to the idea of making music. She appears in both the song and the video, in case you didn’tknow, and has even performed it on stage with her collaborator at a listening party. “That was my way of showing her, showing myself, but also other people, that I’mcapable. It serves as a really lovely reminder that I'm good enough, and I have a lot to give and share. It's nice to know that I have something to take to the grave with me, and that's something I'm forever grateful for.”

The prompt for “Drums of Death” was “empowerment and shedding skin, entering a new form,” which, being a trans woman, is everything Tintin writes about as an artist now. “It’s all about growing, trans icons like SOPHIE and Arca have always been big influences for me. I feel like the way trans people make music is not like how anyone else makes music. I think we have our own approach, and we have our own lived experience, and I think it really shows within our craft.” She admits to not having studied music, having no idea how to structure songs at the time of her studio session with twigs and producer Koreless. Nevertheless, that experience demonstrated the ability to harness skills and talent.

“Faithless” is Tintin’s third single, following 2025’s “Diva Doll” and “Tantrum” with TNSXORDS. Made last spring in Morocco, it’s a showcase of where she was at, mentally and musically, during a hedonistic time fuelled by partying, drugs, and mixed-up priorities. “It was definitely getting me into trouble, I have all these amazing things going on, but I'm choosing to lose myself on the dance floor,” she confesses.The party can be a damaging space, it’s toxic, it’s drug-induced, and it’s hectic. It comes through in the gritty, hard production of Tenerife-based producer Ruiloba. “The track is really just about queer hedonism, and masochism, and freedom. Healing on the dance floor and becoming trans, and you learn to fall in love with yourself. You really just want to, like, go out and let the world love you, but then you’ve still got to work in productive ways, in ways that are healing.”

Tintin’s songs are always going to be sexy and graphic: “I love to shock as much as possible.” She stresses that the content of her writing has always been “a little bit more melancholy and a little bit sad.” But her latest efforts signify a period of change, an embrace of loving life on account of precious lived experience. “Love, sex, heartbreak and happiness. There’s so much more to express. For trans women I want there to be more role models within, not just the scene or the community, but within life and within exposure. I think that's why music inspires me so much. It just serves as another outlet to inspire, and with music specifically, there's so many different avenues.”

Before London, Tintin was living in rural Hertfordshire, but since the big move two years back, it’s been a dream come true for the ambitious multihyphenate. She is now a firm fixture of queer East London nightlife and goth culture. An honorary face of Wraith Club, a collective specialising in transgressive performance, fetish, music and fashion. “Before I was a shell of myself, I was not the person I am today,” she shares. “It all came about really fast. As soon as I moved to London, that's when I started transitioning. That's when I started meeting my queer family. I'm very much trying to stay on the hamster wheel and, like, not stop. I want to just keep going.”

Despite having enough songs in the vault for an album, hopefully one this year, Tintin is biding her time. There’s still a lot of growing to do, a lot of performing, experimentation. “I guess when you're an independent artist, you're doing it as you go. In this day and age, putting out content at a faster pace is probably a bit more wise. My dream is to just have a body of work that is solidified, that is me, and that is there, purely as a sigil.” In the meantime, expect a huge vision for the Tintin brand. Though “Faithless” serves as the next instalment, the possibilities of pop are enticing.“I want to be more listenable, I want to be a known household name. I want to world build in a way that I think hasn't been done before.”