KT TUNSTALL

Tiger Suit

[Virgin]

When KT Tunstall burst into the limelight with 2006’s beatbox-driven hit “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree,” it was clear the Scottish singer-songwriter had a firm grounding in songcraft. On her third album, Tunstall leans toward a more adventurous set of electronic textures. Happily, instead of burying her songwriting under sheets of production, the broadened soundscape enhances and enriches her compositions. “Uummannaq Song” features a yelping background vocal and a propulsive electrobeat that underlines the singer’s fantasy of quitting the business for small-town life. Likewise, on “Push That Knot Away,” a droning acoustic guitar intro gives way to an ominous disco beat that builds to a double-time climax—one of several deft sonic curveballs Tunstall throws throughout Tiger Suit. All this is not to say Tunstall has completely abandoned her rootsier early style. The Latin-tinged acoustic ballad “(Still a) Weirdo” describes the sense of displacement that Tunstall—and pretty much all artistic types—feel in a straitlaced world. –Bob Cannon

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