Cold Specks, yowzas.

One of my favourite music blogs, Quick Before It Melts, regularly features Canadian musicians that I'm sure I would otherwise miss. Just this afternoon I came across the QBiM Facebook page and they were were giving props (I don't know if I like the fact that I just used 'props' in a sentence, but it seems to work) to a lovely, relatively unheard of, musician who goes by the name Cold Specks. I gave a listen, then hunted down an MP3, then watched a YouTube video or two - and was in love by 4 p.m.

I can tell you the same (little) that everyone else seems to know: Cold Specks is a young Canadian woman currently living in London, England where she is recording her debut LP with Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Marianne Faithful). She calls her style of music "doom soul" but I can't help but wonder if music really needs a new new name for this kind of spectacular: she just sings (but she doesn't just sing) gorgeous and unrefined blues and folk. It's not pretentious or contrived, but it's definitely memorable. If I were typing this in Twitter I would hashtag #goosebumps.

The Guardian has a little article/profile you can check out here, and My Old Kentucky Blog has some information and a downloady bit here. Enjoy - and remember - if you LOVE it, you ought to buy it. I'm sure you'll hear more from me on how you can do that as soon as I can get my hands on her first album. Holland is due to be released in December.

Cold Specks "Holland"

Cold Specks, yowzas.