Cold Specks performs live from Neuroplasticity
Cold Specks, a.k.a. Al Spx, performs from her sophomore record live in Studio Q.
Polaris-prize nominee Cold Specks, a.k.a. Al Spx, drops her sophomore album, Neuroplasticity, this month. She joins guest host Stephen Quinn to discuss the highly anticipated follow to her critically lauded debut, her shift to a fuller, more dynamic musical sound, and how she intends to maintain her anonymity as her star continues to rise.
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The Canadian singer-songwriter also performs two songs from the new album.
'You don't need to know everything about me'
Spx wanted to move away from the "sparseness" of her first record into more playful territory with her second one so that performing the songs night after night remained an enjoyable experience for her.
"The songs [from I Predict a Graceful Expulsion] were written about a very real time in my life, but by the time I'd gotten around to touring, the time had long past," Spx tells Stephen, "So I ended up feeling a bit like a bad actress."
(Hallae Khosravi/CBC)
Part of making Neuroplasticity playful for Spx, meant removing any personal attachment she may have to the songs, which is similar reasoning as to why she chooses to keep her actual identity hidden.
"I want to hold on to myself, I don't think there's any need to be laying it all out to strangers," Spx says, "I'm just a musician. I sing songs I like to sing, I like to write songs - and that's what I do - but you don't need to know everything about me."
If you'd like to compare the sound of Neuroplasticity with that of her debut record, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, watch Cold Specks perform two songs from her previous album in the windows embedded below. Both were recorded live in Studio Q in 2012.