The whimsical lo-fi indie pop/rock of Freak Slug recalls the intimacy and double-tracked vocals of Elliott Smith and the extended chords and squishy bedroom timbres of acts like Barrie and MUNYA while adding touches of jangle and distortion for good measure. After releasing a series of self-recorded EPs and LPs in the early 2020s in which the U.K. singer/songwriter explored these sounds and developed an unflinching lyrical style, she made her Future Classic label debut with the more mid-fi I Blow Out Big Candles in 2024. The sharp yet dreamlike Amulet followed in 2026. I'm in Love Manchester's Xenya Genovese began sharing her music online under the pseudonym Freak Slug as early as 2015, with the self-recorded EPs Who stole my bike and Brain appearing in 2015 and 2017, respectively. The album-length Girlfriend and La Love both saw release by the end of 2019, with no contributors credited except for a pair of featured vocalists (Roves and Brad Stank) on the latter. Genovese worked with producer glue70 on March 2020's trippy one-off single "Proud" before the self-produced Videos EP appeared that October. Her fourth EP, I'm in Love, arrived in August 2022, three months before the release of the stand-alone single "Love U Better," a duet with Stank. Released on Our House, May 2023's Viva la Vulva EP fully embraced oddball production and playful vocals. Freak Slug signed with Future Classic for the November 2024 release of her third album, I Blow Out Big Candles. Her most assertive-sounding effort to that point, it incorporated many established tendencies into band arrangements that added hints of '90s alt-rock. An EP titled Loose Tooth and a Short Skirt appeared in 2025, then the full-length Amulet arrived in 2026. - Biography by Marcy Donelson