Could Flight Facilities' NEVER FOREVER mixtape be a hint of a new album?

If you couldn't tell, Flight Facilities seemingly have their eyes on something big on their near horizon.

The pilots shared their debut album Down To Earth back in 2014 (yes, that's seven years ago now - we can't believe it either), but since then they've remained constantly at the forefront of our musical minds, largely thanks to extensive touring, their live album with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2015, and the singles and collaborations that have littered the few years since - tracks with Emma Louise, Broods, Reggie Watts, Saro, NIKA, Dustin Tebbutt and Aloe Blacc included within that.

In the last few months, however, something has felt a little different. Since sharing the Aloe Blacc-featuring Better Than Ever in 2019, the group have only shared remixes, rehashes and demos - a lot of which shared through their recently launched Flight Deck app, which came with a new Decades mix and snippets of unheard material with its launch. Then, in May this year came the release of Lights Up, a new single featuring the always swagger-y Channel Tres on guest vocals; a new single that seemed to highlight Flight Facilities with a new bounce behind them.

Then, in June, came the launch of NEVER FOREVER - a one-time exclusive, hour-long stream soundtracked by all the material the pairing have worked on over the last few years. "Everything is forever now, and yet there’s still so much value in the finite. The nostalgia of a memory is so much stronger than a present reality," Hugo and Jimmy said with the stream's announcement. "NEVER FOREVER is about chasing the magic of the moment, with no guarantees of repeats. We came to know that feeling in the club, on the dance floor, and even on the radio. It meant embracing a limited point in time, for what it was. There is something super special in that moment for us."

While it no longer lives on the internet, NEVER FOREVER was a super special moment for everyone who tuned in, as well. The audio-visual experience - worked on alongside art collective Babekuhl - came with teasers of new and otherwise unreleased material, and while they confirm that some of the material will likely never see the light of day, there are moments within the stream that feel like glimpses into a new era of Flight Facilities; traces of their evolution and growth captured within the journey through Flight Facilities creative minds.

One such moment came with the release of a single called The Ghost in the same week; a long-teased fan-favourite of the duo's that has remained an unreleased gem of their live show for the last few years - until now. It shows another side of the duo - one forged in darker, entirely instrumental brilliance - but it carries the same slickness of Lights Up; the same polish that stops you for a second and makes you think "hey, this feels a little too good to just be another one-off single.".

NEVER FOREVER boasts many of those moments, and that makes us think. In the time since Down To Earth, all of the singles Flight Facilities have released have come far apart from one another, shared as an almost-yearly treat with long gaps in between. Now, we're getting two tracks within the space of just a few month, as well as a new bespoke app and a career-spanning audio-visual mix that promised teasers of even more new music to come - including some to be released.

Could NEVER FOREVER be a tease of a new album? With new music, festival dates throughout Australia and tour dates through the US all on the horizon, everything seems to be pointing towards something new... but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, we're stoked to welcome a behind-the-scenes look at the NEVER FOREVER experience; a short, minute-long look into the experience and how it came about. Filmed and edited by Priscilla Cui, the behind-the-scenes look brings a touch more insight into NEVER FOREVER, and while the show was a one-time-thing never to be unearthed again, a behind-the-scenes glimpse shows there's plenty more on the way.

Dive into the video now, and stay tuned for more to come by Australia's favourite pilots soon... 

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