KT Tunstall goes “Nature Techno”

In an all-white converted car garage, underneath a Soho pavement in London, KT Tunstall premiered her third album to an intimate audience on July 28. Playing solo along with her trusted foot pedal, the Brit-Award winner performed a short slick set from the album titled Tiger Suit.

The new album is a departure from the rootsy folk-rock sound that has defined her first two albums and gives way to a more bouncy, rousing mix combined with her original acoustic guitar. KT calls her new sound “nature techno” ”“ a mix of foot-tapping dance-electronica, breezy acoustics and rock & roll. “I want[ed] to sound like Eddie Cochran working with Leftfield, so that’s we tried,” said Tunstall, of her collaboration with producer Jim Abbis (of Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys fame) on this album.

KT kicked off the evening with ”˜Glamour Puss,’ a smooth, rollicking number, using her loopy foot pedal to full effect. Joking the breaks in set caused by newly acquired gadgetry away, she revealed that the album’s title is a reference to an old recurring dream where she pets a tiger only to realise that she could’ve been killed, but wasn’t because she was wearing ”“ what else – a Tiger Suit. Title trivia aside, the songs do manage a decent Eddie Cochran-Leftfield vibe, especially the pulsating, electronica-infused ”˜Push That Knot Away.’

The most interesting of back-stories to a song was that of ”˜Uummannaq Song,’ which true to its title, originated in what she described as a “bizarre cultural expedition” to Greenland with the likes of Martha Wainwright, Laurie Anderson and Jarvis Cocker that became a “horrendous creative rat race nightmare.” Other highlights included ”˜(Still a) Weirdo,’ her first single, which she’s suitably excited about, and which is filmed in a mud-wrestling bar in Nashville.

Tunstall ended the evening with the feisty, foot-stomping ”˜Fade Like a Shadow,’ another track that gets all that better with her talent for using the sampler and loop. Tiger Suit releases in the UK on September 27.