Listen: Cold Specks - "Absisto"

If you were expecting more of the same on the follow up to London based singer/songwriter Cold Specks, you're in for quite the surprise. "Absisto", the first single from her follow up to 2012's I Predict A Graceful Expulsion is a cacophonous reinvention of sorts. A tumbledown of Al Spx's more pleasantly pliant sound, the tumult is quite appealing: placing her brassy vocals alongside brass calls and serpentine guitar riffs. Like presenting a lot of her characteristic sound in a funhouse mirror, Cold Specks warps and distorts the basic framework of her songwriting but essentially is the same artist at its core, capable of the powerful emotive surges albeit with a far more fiery delivery this time out. Clearly not afraid to fiddle around with her sound to achieve a refreshing alternative, it bodes very well helping Cold Specks avoid a slump.



Cold Specks' sophomore effort Neuroplasticity is out August 26th on Mute Records.

Listen: Cold Specks - "Post Operative #8"

Canadian singer/songwriter Al Spx continues to deliver more of her luscious, dark, soulful hymns as Cold Specks with another single from her brilliant debut album I Predict A Graceful Expulsion. But as incredible as another listen of "Hector" is, the real cause for excitement is in it's b-side "Post Operative #8".

"Post Operative #8" with its slow, melodic purl and bare, simple delivery wouldn't be at all out of place on the album proper and yet, it's brand new and hints that Spx has found her sound in evocative, slow unfurling tracks that showcase her daunting vocal prowess; her rich emotive alto pouring over you like molasses and congealing on her minimalistic but poignant lyricism.

Listen to the b-side to "Hector", "Post-Operative #8":

Watch: Cold Specks - "Hector"

It's rare that you look forward to an artists video as much as I've been looking forward to each creation from Canadian singer/songwriter Al Spx aka Cold Specks. In addition to her utterly consuming brand of stormy gospel-inspired folkiness, she has a real talent for pairing her musical talents with fantastic videography. And that's no less the case with her latest video for new single "Hector" from her debut album I Predict A Graceful Expulsion.

Very little is explained in the video and that's probably for the best. As the video begins, you're not entirely sure what you're seeing as a white figure drags a body along a grassy path before revealing the figure as a pregnant bride still in all her wedding day dressings. There's flashes of the unborn baby as well as the Spx's groom before whatever disaster befell him. There's scenes of a happy wedded union cut with those same flashes of the unborn baby and there's Al Spx in various stages of almost menacing beauty as she sits, stands, and wanders alone. Who decapitated her bridegroom? Was it Al? Was it the baby? Those are the questions you try to unravel as the cinematic music video plods a long. 

Watch the haunting and beautiful video for Cold Specks' "Hector":