SPECKS LIFTS CLOAK OF MYSTERY
Notoriously reticent singer-songwriter offers her most personal album in Fool’s Paradise
When it comes to crafting a persona as a singer-songwriter, being mysterious is a good thing. Being confusing, however, is not. Ever since she emerged onto the international scene with her 2012 debut I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, there has been an undeniable layer of intrigue to singersongwriter Ladan Hussein. The album introduced a fully formed artist who offered a unique mix of intimacy and mystery in a genre she dubbed “doom soul.” She named the project Cold Specks. When interviewers asked for her real name, she gave them Al Spx, which also happened to be made up.
It made her compellingly enigmatic, but was also kind of confusing. People would mix up the names. During one TV appearance, she was identified as Cold Specks-Al Spx.
“I just wanted to be private,” says Hussein, in a tour-stop interview. “I used to think that just because I made music didn’t mean that people get to know who I am. I don’t really care anymore.”
Which is not to say Hussein has suddenly become an open book. She still records under Cold Specks and remains decidedly reticent during her recent interview with Postmedia.
Still, the Etobicoke-raised artist’s decision to use her real name in the press while promoting her third album, Fool’s Paradise, seems more than just an attempt to avoid confusion.
The album is probably her most personal, if not downright autobiographical, statement to date. Details about her background, once shrouded in mystery, have been coming out in interviews as she discusses the album.
She has told media that she began writing it after the death of her grandmother. She has spoken at length about drawing from Somalian pop music after returning to her family home in Ontario after living in England.
Her parents fled Mogadishu to escape the civil war in the 1980s and immigrated to Canada. But before that, her father had been a musician of some renown in his home country. Hussein found herself drawn to old clips of prewar Somalian pop music that she found on YouTube.
“I did know some details, but I never really dug into what his life was like in his 20s until recently,” says Hussein, who will play Calgary’s Commonwealth on Nov. 22. “It just never came up ... He was involved in the music scene so he had a lot of knowledge about all these people He would tell me about their lives and introduce me to collections of female singers. That all seeped right through.”
Her fascination with a Somalian goddess named Araweelo figures
into the title track, which also features Hussein singing in Somali for the first time.
“We don’t really know if she existed or not because histories are oral in Somalia and it’s usually passed down by men, so naturally it gets distorted,” Hussein says. “She is definitely an influence on the title track, Fool’s Paradise, which is a dystopian reflection from the perspective of a Somali-Canadian girl.”
While Fool’s Paradise marks a significant shift in lyrical content, it also boasts a strikingly different sonic backdrop for her deep, soulful voice. Her debut, recorded while she lived in London, was a slow- burning stripped- down study of indie-folk, soul, gospel and blues that was chilling and spacious and made her an instant sensation in her adopted country. She expanded her sound on the 2014 followup, Neuroplasticity, adding more of a rock edge and filling in the space with horns and textured grooves.
Meanwhile, in a relatively short period of time, she became a much sought-after guest in the studio, singing on some high- profile tracks. She was enlisted to help out on albums such as Moby’s Innocents, jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire’s 2014 release The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint and Swans’ To Be Kind. She also appeared on Ritual Spirit, the 2016 EP by trip-hop veterans Massive Attack.
The latter project had a direct impact on Hussein’s recent musical obsessions and the synthheavy, electronic sound of the new disc.
“I wanted it to be intimate and be really synth-based,” she says. “That came after obsessing over musi- cians like Massive Attack and Portishead. At one point, I lived near Bristol and was really obsessed with electronic music from the 1990s or lo-fi analogue synthesizer-based music. I never really made electronic music until I did a couple of sessions with (Massive Attack) and I became really obsessed with it. I find it much more freeing than stripped-back, guitar-based music. It’s just what I’m attracted to at the moment, but who knows what will happen next time.”
The resulting album seems to find Hussein looking musically outward and lyrically inward.
“It’s less vague,” she acknowledges, although stops short of expanding too much on the thought. “It is what it is.”
I used to think that just because I made music didn’t mean that people get to know who I am. I don’t really care anymore.