Enigmatic Canadian singer-songwriter Cold Specks opens up to TIM HUGHES about her music, her breakthrough appearance on British TV and her move to London.

FOR a spellbinding singer so willing to open her heart, Cold Specks is surprisingly secretive.

Not much is known about this enigmatic and shy soul artist, and she seems reluctant to fill in the gaps.

What is known though, is that she is a remarkable talent who has left audiences wide-mouthed since emerging with a breakthrough appearance on Later... with Jools Holland. And she is destined to be huge. Her music is literate, emotive and speaks volumes about this self-taught Canadian singer-songwriter – even if she, herself, won’t.

First off, though, is the issue of what to call her? ‘Cold’? Ms Specks? “Just call me Al,” she says. “Al Spx,” though she admits – as if there were any doubt – that it might not be real.

She also confides that she lives in London, having moved from her native Toronto, and is quite a fan of her adopted city – the place that is rapidly making her into a star. But, while she is sweet and disarmingly polite, she’s not ready to give much away.

Where she does loosen up though, is when talking about her music – and her sudden, and, on her part, unexpected, rise from obscurity.

“I make folkie ‘doom’ soul,” she says. “My music is dark, because I guess I am a doomed soul. I’m a private person but when I’m songwriting I tend to be honest – and that involves a bit of gloom. But then we all need a bit of doom and gloom.”

She performs and records with the band which shares her name, and which is taken from a line in James Joyce’s Ulysses: “Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights shining in the darkness”.

And between them, they create something haunting, old-fashioned and beautiful, and all hung off that heart-stopping voice.

Debut album I Predict a Graceful Expulsion is a classic slice of Deep South blues and gospel-flavoured Americana, yet was crafted by a woman from Ontario – and made over here.

“I came to London to make my album and ended up staying,” she says. “I had been making music before but had never actively pursued it until moving over here.

“It's really nice – though I’m still trying to get used to a lot of British things which are confusing to me – like pasties... and the fact the subway shuts at 12.30am.”

Although it’s her first, she describes the album as her “greatest hits compilation,” because she had so much material to draw on.

“I guess I’ve been working on it for years, because I’ve been writing songs since I was young,” she says. “The next one will be harder, but I still have a lot of songs. There were songs I took into the studio for the first album and didn’t use, plus a bunch of old ones too.”

So how much difference did THAT appearance on Jools’s show make? “Well, I wasn’t signed when I went on Jools, but a lot of things happened after that which wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” she says. “That was the thing that changed everything. I even get recognised now when I’m in the street or waiting in line.”

Though, she admits, that big break very nearly didn’t happen.

“I lost my passport the day before I was due to fly to London for the show,” she cringes. “I had to cancel and rearrange my flights, and get an emergency passport and visa. It was a very close thing but I got there just in time. It was the most expensive mistake I’ve ever made though.”

On February 27, Al plays the Jericho Tavern – her first outing to Oxford. So what can we expect, I ask?

“I’m going to sing my heart out,” she says, with feeling. “And the same goes for the band. We’re going to play and have a good time. There is going to be a few acoustic and acapella songs, and some upbeat stuff – though plenty of doom as well!”

* Cold Specks plays the Jericho Tavern, Oxford, on Monday, February 27. For details go to coldspecks.com