Cold Specks: I Predict a Graceful Expulsion – review

When mysterious, pseudonymous Canadian singing guitarist Al Spx first surfaced last year, her self-taught strangeness was as captivating as a field recording from the Deep South. Some of that strangeness survives on her debut, on the final track Lay Me Down, and in patches elsewhere. There's chilling, unspoken violence on the first two tracks and a "Rotterdam, goddamn" opening to the intriguing Holland, which might echo Nina Simone. But the arrangements here, courtesy of PJ Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis, seek to relocate Spx in too elegant a vein, making her sound less singular and more assimilable. It is a shame.