Ali Genevich, a founding member and frontwoman of Laveda (Bar/None Records) and guitarist/bassist in Retail Drugs (Fire Talk), recently unveiled her solo project, untitled freak. New track, birthday, represents a dawning, establishing untitled freak as a beginning for something vulnerable and expanding. Based on a simple AB structure, the song originated from an effortless flow condition, with vocals and drums providing emotional gravity right away. The addition of Z Houacine (Bruiser, Bicycle) on drums strengthens the project, reimagining it as an open space rather than a closed-off expression.
birthday sits somewhere adjacent to slowcore, though it’s too aberrant to settle comfortably into the genre. It wanders with purpose, restrained, ambiguous, and subtly confusing. Lyrically, the song turns inward without collapsing on itself, focusing on self-discovery, and portraying the closeness of living near friends and lovers, as well as the importance of a common past and the comfort of being fully known.
Ali says: “After I made the track and first listened back I realized I had successfully transported myself back in time to when I was 19, when I first started writing music. When I listen to ‘birthday’ I’m somehow back in the kitchen of my first college apartment on Morris Street. Maybe the song had always existed and was buried deep inside my head. I don’t remember writing it.”
ZR