Freak Slug, the project of the Manchester multi-disciplinary artist Xenya Genovese, has announced details of her debut album, I Blow Out Big Candles, for release on 8 November 2024 via her new label home, Future Classic. (Pre-save here)
Recorded in Manchester and London with Alex Headford (Jadu Heart / Gretel), I Blow Out Big Candles is playful, fun, but not shying away from the darker sides of both sound and psyche. A debut that builds a whole world for it to live in, I Blow Out Big Candles dreams as big and unshackled as Freak Slug herself.
The album’s first single, ‘Spells’, epitomises Freak Slug’s fearless attitude. A fizzy alt-pop prowl of a song that pounces on you with busy bass lines, and jittery beats, Freak Slug’s inventive vocals bounce around the room with melodic hooks. It reels you in with its hyperactive inspiration and tendency to jump right in, it’s a daredevil song that sounds a bit of Le Tigre jiving with Tune-Yards. It was inspired by Gorillaz and written “for the lovers and the I don’t knowers”. Xenya explains more about the song: “Spells is a track I made with Alex from Jadu Heart and it’s the first song we ever made together on the album. We worked fast together in a hyper environment where the sun was shining through the windows and I was stealing his cigarettes smoking in the garden in excitement from making the song.”
The name Freak Slug encapsulates Genovese’s artistic world perversely perfectly. Her releases under the name so far – debut 2020 EP Videos and its viral hit ‘Radio‘ (13.5 million Spotify streams and counting), and follow-up EPs I’m In Love (2022) and Viva La Vulva (2023) – might have introduced listeners to a “more summery, happy, LA sound”, but with the advent of debut album I Blow Out Big Candles, this Slug is burrowing down into evermore unlikely places. As she accurately points out: “The name is giving more grunge than joy”.
She wants to make music that “has bite”, that “doesn’t fuck about”, that “cuts the shit”. I
Along with her four-piece band, Freak Slug has performed to packed audiences at End of The Road Festival, The Great Escape, Blue Dot, Green Man and has played as special guests of Dope Lemon, Brad Stank and Yumi Zouma.
Freak Slug will appear at various UK festivals this Autumn including Cardiff’s Swn Festival, Liverpool’s Favourite Days Festival, Brighton’s Mutations Festival and Leeds In The City. An album launch party will take place at Signature Brew in London on release date, 8 November 2024. Freak Slug will then head to the US in December for her first ever US tour with two live shows in NewYork (with one already sold out), two in Los Angeles as well as a show in Chicago. See below for a full list of upcoming tour dates, with more dates to be announced.
Tour dates
October
19th – Swn Festival | Cardiff, UK
November
7th– Favourite Days Festival | Liverpool, UK
8th– Signature Brew | London, UK – album launch party
9th – Mutations Festival | Brighton, UK
16th – Live at Leeds In The City | Leeds, UK
December
3rd – Genghis Cohen | LA, CA, USA
5th – Gold Diggers | LA, CA, USA
7th – Baby’s All Right | Brooklyn, NY, USA
8th – Union Pool | Brooklyn, NY, USA – SOLD OUT
10th – Schubas | Chicago, IL, USA
