You may have heard “Suddenly I See” on heavy rotation in 2006, but what really turned me on to KT Tunstall’s work is the foot-stomping song “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” from that first album, “Eye on the Telescope” (released 2005). Check out her live version here — she shows her singing/songwriting/performing chops on stage:

On the strength of that song, I checked out the rest of her repertoire: two albums thus far, with this year’s release titled “Drastic Fantastic”. And it is fantastic, indeed. I purchased both albums!

Tunstall does have her own sound, although I don’t know if she deserves to be relegated to the pop section of iTunes since her guitar hooks and riffs are much more rock ‘n’ roll. And I have no idea where the comparisons to Dido come from, because I have a lot of Dido’s music and their voices and songs don’t sound anything alike. Even when Tunstall goes down-tempo, she’s still more like a folksie Chrissie Hynde than any one of a number of pop princesses floating about these days. Not that Dido is part of that group, but she’s still an orange to Tunstall’s apple.

Tunstall has an interesting look, too. According to the wiki on Last.fm (oh how I love this site), she was born in Edinburgh but raised across the river in Fife. (Edinburgh is still near and dear to my heart, having lived there for a very formative year and a half before moving to Glasgow.) Adopted by scientists, Tunstall’s non-traditional-Scottish look is attributed to her biological mum, who is part Chinese, and the musical genes from her Irish folk musician father. Not that any of it matters, since Tunstall clearly owns her talent, but I’m a culture-hound who always sniffs around and digs up the trivia.

At any rate, this is one of my favourite tracks from her second album, “Drastic Fantastic”, a track called “Hold On.” It’s sort of a cross-over song, a bit pop, a bit rock ‘n’ roll, starting off on a blues-y note and speeding up to a swing-y dance number. See what you think: