Cold Specks

Cold Specks

Cold Specks is the project of Somali-Canadian singer-songwriter Ladan Hussein, formerly known as Al Spx. She is from Etobicoke, Canada, and now lives in London. Her music draws on the traditions of the American Deep South and is associated with soul, acoustic music and doom soul.

Style and influences

Cold Specks combines sparse arrangements with chain-gang rhythms. Hussein cites the Lomax Field Recordings, James Carr, Bill Callahan and Tom Waits among her influences. Her voice is compared with the “spirit feel” of Mahalia Jackson and the force of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Releases

Her debut album, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, appears on Mute Records and Arts & Crafts in Canada and is shortlisted for the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Her second album, Neuroplasticity, follows in 2014, and her third album, Fool's Paradise, is released in 2017. In 2025 she releases Light for the Midnight, her first full-length album since her health issues.

Personal context

After Fool's Paradise, Hussein experiences a mental health breakdown and undergoes several months of treatment at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.