Freak Slug, the project of the Manchester multi-disciplinary artist Xenya Genovese, today announces 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 punchy single, “Spells”, is out now, and epitomises Freak Slug’s fearless attitude. A strange prowl of a song that pairs a slinking bass line with a deliciously twitchy electronic motif, the daredevil song 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”. Hugely influenced by ‘90s cult heroes including Ride, Mazzy Star and Stephen Malkmus, Freak Slug is all about hitting a mood. Everything that fuels her creative output is raw, authentic, sometimes weird, but always totally true self-expression. She wants to make music that “has bite”, that “doesn’t fuck about”, that “cuts the shit”. I Blow Out Big Candles is a strong statement of all of this and more. Down there, picking through the curious mix of sounds and feelings, from nostalgic, ‘90s-influenced and dreamy as well as eccentric and experimental, lives Freak Slug. Listen to “Spells” here and watch the video below. | 
