Sunday 14/08/05 KT Tunstall, Petra Jean Phillipson, Half Cousin @ Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, London

In a world where Keren Ann’s ‘Nolita’ is receiving praise from all quarters, and where female artists from Martha Wainwright to Joanna Newsom are taking the singer-songwriter craft into edgier territory, is there really a need for KT Tunstall? Throwing indie snobbery out of the window, ‘Eye To The Telescope’, Tunstall’s debut, is a lovely paean to hope and imagination firmly on the right side of 'coffee-table'. Perched on the edge of a plastic blue chair, she sweetly introduces each support band, beginning with Scotland’s Half Cousin.

 

Built around central songwriting partnership Kevin Cormack and Jimmy Hogarth, Half Cousin’s approach to percussion is surprisingly crunchy, almost industrial. Beating a sheet of steel (and at one point an empty birdcage), the effect is like the songs of Arab Strap as played by the Beta Band or Clinic. One of their tracks even has an intense, angular approach to rhythm more reminiscent of Converge; perhaps the only time the Boston noise-core heroes will ever be mentioned within a KT Tunstall review.

 

Later, label mate Petra Jean Phillipson fares less well. A former vocalist with David Holmes’ Free Association, her voice at times reminds us of that holy grail of female vocalists Billie Holiday, but her gothic, oblique sounding music is too meandering to have any lasting effect; the only pleasingly jarring moments come when Petra sings lines like "I want to have a penis for a day" and "I don’t give a ****". Think PJ Harvey without the bite.

 

Tonight, however, belongs to KT Tunstall. Her songs have a smoky, homespun feel emphasised by our sanguine surroundings - this is hippy-chic, the only thing missing a blazing camp fire. Though her approach to songwriting is comfortable and rather traditional, KT isn’t adverse to some subtle experimentation as on ‘Miniature Disasters’ and ‘Black Horse And The Cherry Tree’, as she thumps the body of her guitar to create a looped beat. Despite this, the best moments tonight are when her lovely and lucid voice stands alone, ringing out across the otherwise silent auditorium. She is one of us: bruised, vulnerable, and at times effortlessly charming, regaling us with cute little anecdotes and at one point forgetting her own words to ‘False Alarm’.

 

KT’s ascent has been slow compared to the flash of a Katie Melua, but there’s certainly no evidence to say she’s peaked. As she ends the gig, playing old track ‘Boo-Hoo’ alone under a white canopy with only her guitar, it’s clear that, though she toiled away for ten years to get where she is now, she still has a lot further to go. Do we need KT? The answer is yes.