KT reaches for stars in space age love affair

Published on Saturday 18 July 2009 19:47

SHE has played gigs everywhere from New Zealand to the North Pole and is now setting her sights on outer space.

KT Tunstall is to present an astronomy-themed show for the BBC as part of a special season to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing.

The singer's lifelong fascination with everything extraterrestrial has led to her being invited to front a Radio 2 broadcast on astronomy,

and she will be making her debut as a presenter.

A BBC spokeswoman confirmed that KT had been signed up as a guest presenter and that the show would be named after her multi-million-selling first album. She said: "In Eye to the Telescope KT will give her personal take on our continuing fascination with the final frontier, set against a soundtrack of music inspired by space.

"When she was a little girl KT's physicist father used to take her to the St Andrews Observatory, thus launching a lifelong fascination with space travel which inspired the title of her debut album.

"She is not alone. From the early days of the space programme, artists have been intrigued by the wonders of the universe and possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth.

"While astronauts explored the boundaries of space, musicians realised they could explore new musical frontiers and started experimenting with recording techniques and synthesisers."

One otherworldly tune that the Fife singer will focus on is Telstar by the Tornadoes, which hit the number one spot in both the UK and the US in 1962.

The haunting instrumental, which made use of fledgling synthesiser technology, was inspired by the launch of a communications satellite.

The tune was written and produced by Joe Meek, whose life was recently celebrated in the bigscreen biopic Telstar.

Tunstall's show will shed light on the more mundane provenance of the futuristic sound effects which sold more than 5 million copies.

The sounds intended to replicate radio signals were produced by Meek running a pen around the rim of an ashtray, while the opening "rocket blastoff" was actually the sound of a flushing toilet.

The broadcast will also feature tracks from David Bowie, who penned Starman and Space Oddity, The Byrds, who wrote Mr Spaceman and from Brian Eno who in 1983 wrote an entire album inspired by the Apollo 11 mission.

Paul Hartnoll of the dance duo Orbital, who recorded a techno version of the Doctor Who theme tune, Scottish band The Aliens, Dave Brock of the legendary 1970s psychedelic rockers Hawkwind and film critic Kim Newman will all join Tunstall on her radio mission.

The singer, 34, who shot to fame after appearing on the BBC music show Later With Jools Holland, has said she was unlikely to head for the stars.

"I would love to go into space, but my eco-friendly credentials would be slashed. Imagine the carbon footprint on a space mission."

The closest she got was in 2007 when NASA played one of her songs to astronauts aboard the US shuttle Endeavour.

Mission control relayed Black Horse and the Cherry Tree to raise spirits after the craft sustained damage to its heatshield while in orbit.

She said: "I didn't even know it had been played in space. It's amazing. To think that I have played up there when, as a kid, my dad was really into science as a physics lecturer with access to the university observatory.

"It was never my ambition to have records played in space, but it's great to think my music is out there."

Tunstall's show is one of a variety of shows being broadcast to commemorate Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the lunar surface 40 years ago tomorrow.

On Radio 3 author and journalist Michael Goldfarb will re-examine the landing and claim it was the world's first global media event, with 500m TV viewers across the globe.

The season will also feature a recording from London's 02 Arena of the stage version of Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds.

The album, which re-imagined the classic science-fiction tale, has sold over 15m copies and spent 330 weeks in the UK album chart.

Wayne said: "Perhaps not as breathtaking as actually landing on the Moon, HG Wells did take our imaginations to Mars and was the catalyst for me as a composer and producer."

Eye to the Telescope with KT Tunstall will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Saturday at 10pm.