Cold Specks will be performing at ONCE Ballroom on Thursday, November 2. ~ Photo by Norman Wong

By Blake Maddux

Ladan Hussein was born in Etobicoke, Ontario, to Solami parents who had immigrated to Canada in 1987.

For a time, she studied political science at the University of Toronto with the intention of becoming a lawyer.

However, her passion for music made it increasingly unlikely that she would go on to handle legal matters on a daily basis.

“My career kind of took off,” Hussein said in a recent phone interview, “and I got to play shows and make records. I did that instead of studying.”

On her first two albums, 2012’s I Predict a Graceful Expulsion and 2014’s Neuroplasticity, Hussein cultivated a sound that she dubbed “doom soul.” Both were released under her stage name, Cold Specks. To fans and the press, she identified herself as Al Spx.

It was not until a tweet dated March 20, 2015, that Cold Specks revealed to the public the name that her parents gave her.
The first date of Hussein’s U.S. tour in support of her new album, Fool’s Paradise, is at ONCE Ballroom in Somerville on November 2. She spoke to The Somerville Times from a stop in Hamburg, Germany.

The Somerville Times: Although Cold Specks has always been your stage name, you used to use Al Spx as your “real” name. Why do you now identify yourself by your birth name?

Cold Specks: It’s just my name. I don’t know, I just kind of grew tired of pseudonyms. I already have a stage name. There’s no need for two.

TST: Why did you ever identify as something other than Ladan Hussein in the first place?

CS: It’s because people wanted to know my name after I gave them my stage name, and I was always attracted to people like Bat Lashes or Flying Lotus. I always liked the idea of having a different name, but they always wanted to know the real name behind it. So I gave them a fake name behind the fake name. It’s just a collection of pseudonyms.

TST: Is it accurate, as some sources say, that the name Cold Specks comes from a sentence in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses?

CS: I was really in to X-Ray Spex at the time, and I just liked the way the words sounded together. It had nothing to do with any sort of attraction to that novel or James Joyce. I just liked how it sounded. And I also thought it represented my cold dead eyes. (laughs)

TST: What is the name’s connection to the band X-Ray Spex?

CS: I was just a big fan. [Lead singer] Poly Styrene, I was mostly a huge fan of her. She’s Somali, I’m Somali. She was making punk music, I was into punk. And I just identified with her in a way that I didn’t identify with someone like Joe Strummer or something. I worshiped her.

TST: What would you say are the overarching themes of your new album, Fool’s Paradise?

CS: There are so many. I like to summarize it as “love lost, diaspora dreaming, and apathy during the apocalypse.”

TST: How much did you know about your father’s music career in Somalia before you researched it while making this album?

CS: I knew bits here and there. Mostly I was really appreciative of his involvement in the scene and him telling me about how his life was like in the 70s, and I realized we’re so much alike. It was nice to connect with him on that level, for sure.

TST: Who is speaking the passage in Somali at the end of the closing track, Exile, and what is that person saying?

CS: It’s my mother and it’s a prayer dedicated to me in which she wishes me good fortune. It’s her own words dedicated to me. She’s wishing me good fortune and all the love and peace of mind I could ever dream of. It’s just a really lovely message from my mother. She leaves me messages like that all the time. She’s a very sweet mother.

TST: How did Tim Kingsbury, the bassist for Arcade Fire, end up playing on some of the new album’s songs?

CS: Tim and I used to have a music studio together in Montreal. So I asked him to play on some songs and he was down. Probably one of the best things that came out of living in that city was getting to know a bunch of musicians and sharing a space with them. My friendship with Tim is one that I really appreciate having. His bass playing is divine.

TST: Do you still live in Montreal?

CS: I don’t live anywhere right now. I’m on tour right now. I gave up my apartment. (laughs) I’m trying to figure out a new city to move to.

Cold Specks with La Timpa and Radclyffe Hall. ONCE Ballroom, 156 Highland Ave. Thursday, November 2. Doors at 8:00 p.m., show at 8:45 p.m.