The British artist dives into her cathartic songwriting, artistic expression, and why Honest Man had to arrive on an eclipse.
Xenya Genovese doesn’t waste time. “I make music in world record time,” she states matter-of-factly. “I’m telling you now, I don’t mess around in the studio. I’m making a song, maybe three in a day, maybe two in a day. I’m very quick and I’ve always been that way.”
This same sense of urgency is written into every layer of her new single Honest Man, lifted from her next EP Loose Tooth And A Short Skirt out on 7 November.
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Released in the lead up to an eclipse, Honest Man is as symbolic as it is sonically striking. The track rushes forward with instinct, catharsis and an energy that refuses to be tamed. At the start, listeners are greeted with distant voices and laughter, which are samples of Genovese’s father joking from a hospital bed after a heart attack. It was also the first day of an eclipse when her father was rushed into hospital.
“It’s a full circle moment” and “quite symbolic” she reveals on her decision to coincide the release with another eclipse.
“It’s exploring the archetype of a man, a father, and the relationship between woman and man, or daughter and father. Everybody has that, whether he’s there or not. Whether he exists or not in your life, you have a relationship with something invisible or physical,” Genovese explains.
While Honest Man explores the intricacies of human relationships, it does so in a burning matter. “I love a good slap with a song,” she says. “I like things that just hit you in the face, like unexpectedly. Honest Man does that – you know how it all just comes in at once? It’s giving, like, Yellow by Coldplay or some shit, and you’re like, ‘Whoa, damn.’”
As a multi-disciplinarian, Genovese brings their background in painting and videography into their music. Visualising Honest Man as a painting, they explain “the verses would be light blue and white – chill vibes. But the chorus comes in with a bit of a ruckus, like navy, speckles of black, rugged textures from the street, cardboard, plastic, remnants. Composition is really important to me. In a song you have the chorus, that’s the focal point – same as in a painting.”
The speed at which she creates has always been at the centre point of her process. In art school, a teacher once described her as “a machine”. She talks of this inherited energy as coming through messages she receives from the universe. “They come very quickly and I just act,” she tells me. “A real artist doesn’t work from the ego. It works from a place beyond that. It works from a place of being a messenger. You don’t care how you’re perceived – that’s a little bollocks. You make art from a much purer place, for a higher good.”
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This energy has no doubt influenced the upcoming EP, where FGenovese’s lyrical style continues to sharpen and deliver. “I think lyrically, I’m being a little bit more indirect in some ways, even though I am direct,” she confesses. “There are only so many direct ways of saying, ‘I love you, I hate you’ until you have to start being more poetic. I don’t have much fluff in the way I talk and I don’t like to make things flowery for the sake of it. That’s how I’d describe the EP.”
Where releasing music is concerned, we can expect a lot more to come from Genovese. When asked what excites her most about what’s next, she reflects with a grin, “Bro, I’ve finished the album already and I’m so excited. I can’t even be assed. I’m literally not listening to it ’cause I have to focus on this EP, but I’m really excited in the direction Freak Slug’s going. It’s crazy.”
This October, Freak Slug will be gracing us with her presence on stage with her debut in Australia. She promises to take her audiences along with her on an emotionally charged and eccentric journey.
“I’m so excited to see Melbourne, I’ve always wanted to go there,” she shares. “I feel like people there are just with it, in ways some English people aren’t. I’m interested to meet them as a collective in one space. That’s what I’m most excited for.”
Freak Slug is playing at The Night Cat on 14 October. Tickets here.
