Music
KT Tunstall adds some rock and edge to her sound, while Cat Power offers a lovely collection of strippedback soulful pop
Album reviews, plus Jim Gilchrist interviews Mary Ann Kennedy ahead of the Royal National Mòd
From the moment she strikes the first meaty chord of her new album, you can appreciate why KT
Tunstall has attracted the endorsement of her recent tourmate Chrissie Hynde. Hynde probably recognises a kindred spirit – a determined, talented, independentminded musician with a love of rocking out whatever the musical weather.
Like Hynde, Tunstall can also give good ballad and pop tuneage and there is room for all facets of her music on WAX. But the engine here is the electric guitar, which she wields alongside her co-writer and producer, former Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick Mccarthy, who is also no slouch when it comes to penning hooklines.
WAX is the second in a trilogy of albums themed around soul, body and mind. Appropriately for the “body” chapter, Tunstall is looking fierce and sounding visceral in her desire to capture the greater grit of her live shows.
The production remains slick and radio-friendly but there is a tougher tone and more rhythmic sound here which recalls her breakthrough hit Black Horse & the Cherry Tree as she celebrates the tingle of new
relationships on power pop rocker Human Being, the need for escape and
cleansing on The River and channels some of Hynde’s feline presence on
The Healer.
But there are also echoes of another natural born frontwoman on Poison In Your Cup, which recalls the seductive ache which Sharleen Spiteri brings to the softer Texas songs. Tunstall is confident in displaying sensitivity, whether on the stealthy, breathy funk of The
Mountain or the burnished roots
pop of The Night That Bowie Died, suffused with subtle Bowie influences in the wistful melody and plangent guitar, and stays in sensitive mode to end the album on the gentle pulsing heartbeat of Tiny Love.
There is further strength in subtlety and vulnerability on the latest release by Cat Power, aka singer/songwriter Chan Marshall, who turns in another sumptuously produced collection of stripped-back soulful pop delivered in her smoky, bluesy tone. Marshall casts herself as the travelling troubadour on Wanderer where her raw emotions find solace in the comforting music. The sparse but captivating klezmer noir of Me Voy is a highlight; elsewhere, she covers Rihanna’s Stay as a luminous piano ballad, layers on her vocals to create a chorus of Cats on the acoustic blues of Black and duets with the similarly sultry Lana Del Rey on slow-burning southern soul lament Woman.
The equally intuitive Kristin Hersh usually records solo – describing her previous acoustic album Wyatt
at the Coyote Palace as “the sound of having no friends” – but she has opted to get social on Possible Dust
Clouds which was recorded in scrappy style by collaring passing musicians and inviting them to “make some noise.” The results are duly grimy and grungey, from the fuzzy squall of Fox Point via the clattering momentum of Lethe to the punk waltz of Loudmouth. There’s a feral charge to proceedings, just don’t expect to make out any lyrics among the muffled guitar heroics, distorted vocals and lumbering, inexorable rhythm of No Shade In Shadow and its ilk.
Glasgow’s Carla J Easton is both fan and purveyor of girl group pop, celebrating the unsung female musicians of Scotland from the Mckinley Sisters to Strawberry Switchblade in the documentary Since Yesterday and its complementary Edinburgh International Festival concert, as well as fronting her own band Teen Canteen. But her second solo album is her boldest pop broadcast yet, spanning the girl group spectrum from the romantic rallying cry of Dreamers on the Run and the quivering ballad Vagabond to the pulsing electro pop of Lights in the
Dark and the stomping, uplifting Milk & Honey.
Tunstall is looking fierce and sounding visceral in her desire to capture the greater grit of her live shows