July 29, 2010

By By Richard Smirke, London

U.K. singer-songwriter KT Tunstall made her live return in London last night (July 28) where she premiered material from her new studio set, "Tiger Suit" (Virgin/Relentless).

Performing a short stripped-back set in front of a small number of selected media at London's Vinyl Factory venue, Tunstall performed a handful of tracks from the new record, which was produced by Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Adele, Kasabian) and is due to be released Sept. 27 in the United Kingdom and a day later in the States.

The new songs that Tunstall performed included: "Glamour Puss," an upbeat acoustic number mixing looped vocals and beat box percussion; the dance-flavored "Push That Knot Away" and the poppy "Uummannaq Song," which the Grammy-nominated Scottish artist revealed was inspired by a "bizarre" cultural expedition to Greenland accompanied by a number of fellow musicians, including Martha Wainwright, Feist and Jarvis Cocker.

"It was a horrendous creative rat race nightmare," joked Tunstall, who admitted to being nervous performing the new material for the first time.

Other highlights from the well-received set included a finger-picked run through forthcoming U.K. single "(Still A) Weirdo" and a re-worked version of "Other Side of the World," taken from Tunstall's 2004 debut album "Eye To The Telescope" (Virgin/Relentless), which saw the artist swap her trusted acoustic guitar for a keyboard.

Tunstall ended her set with an impassioned run through "Tiger Suit" track "Golden Frames" before leaving the stage to heavy applause.

Discussing the change in musical direction for her third studio set, which Tunstall has dubbed "Nature Techno" and mixes dance rhythms and electronic percussion alongside acoustic guitars and pop melodies, the BRIT Award-winning artist told the audience that when she first me up with producer Jim Abbiss she said: "I want to sound like Eddie Cochran working with Leftfield, so that's what we tried."

Tunstall's previous studio album, 2007's "Drastic Fantastic" peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200.

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