KT TUNSTALL KNOWS A SONG CAN KEEP CHANGING / THE KESSLER / 1.8.27
More than twenty years after Eye to the Telescope, KT Tunstall continues to find new possibilities in the songs that made her famous. The Scottish songwriter returns to Dallas for an intimate performance at The Kessler.
– JAMBALOO EDITORIAL TEAM
There is a wonderful moment in KT Tunstall’s breakthrough performance on Later… with Jools Holland in 2004 when you realize that the entire arrangement of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” is being constructed by one person, in real time, with a guitar, a tambourine and a loop pedal.
It was an extraordinary introduction to a songwriter who understood that the performance of a song could be every bit as inventive as its recording. Twenty-two years later, that approach still feels central to what makes Tunstall such an engaging live artist.
Her debut album, Eye to the Telescope, arrived in 2004 and eventually sold more than five million copies, introducing the world to “Suddenly I See,” “Other Side of the World” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” Those songs have become so familiar that it is easy to overlook how individual they sounded when they first appeared. Tunstall had a remarkable instinct for writing melodies that seemed effortless while building arrangements full of unexpected rhythmic ideas.
She has spent the years since exploring how far those instincts can take her.
The three albums that make up her KIN, WAX and NUT trilogy moved through different aspects of human experience, incorporating increasingly expansive production and electronic textures. More recently, she has taken her songwriting into musical theatre, composing the music for the stage adaptation of Clueless, which opened in London’s West End in 2025.
The twentieth anniversary of Eye to the Telescope has also provided an opportunity to revisit the record from a different perspective. Its expanded Stargazer Edition includes previously unfinished material from the original sessions, among it a newly completed title track featuring saxophonist Shabaka, alongside rare recordings and live performances.
What makes that particularly appealing is Tunstall’s continuing interest in what happens when familiar material is placed in a different musical setting. Her concerts have long incorporated spontaneous arrangements, unexpected covers and songs that develop in directions their original recordings never suggested.
That should translate beautifully to The Kessler, where the intimacy of the room allows the smaller decisions in a performance to become part of the experience.
There will undoubtedly be people arriving to hear the songs they fell in love with twenty years ago. The pleasure of seeing KT Tunstall live is discovering what she might decide to do with them this time.
