In a world full of noise and self-importance, physical hustle, and ego-driven bustle, you have to admire how Tallulah Rendall quietly goes about her business. With the release of Only Human, she is seven albums in, all independently released and crowdfunded by a devoted fanbase, again something that speaks volumes about how she conducts herself in this brash world.
It is perhaps telling that when not releasing albums or gracing the stage, Rendall works in the world of teaching, of well-being and sound therapy, and her music, and certainly the messages found within it, seem to be where the two sides of her life come easily together, a place of sound and serenity, meditation and mentorship, expression and artistry.
Opening with ‘Human,’ a song that drifts in almost formlessly and then slowly coalesces into a more structured arrangement as we look on, sets the tone perfectly: signalling an album more about grace than groove, elegance than energy, eloquence gently dancing with ambience.
And so it is. ‘Pillars’ feels like an old-world spiritual remade for the digital age; beats stand in for hand-claps, cellos drift, and words land effortlessly and celebratory. And the space between each note and word leaves enough room for other atmospheres to pool and percolate, the song becoming more than the sum of its intended parts, an art that perhaps defines just one of the many things that makes her music so great, in the same way that a watercolour’s half-complete nature makes the viewer meet it halfway, and so completing the picture.
‘Find My Way’ heads, initially, into more indie-folk territory, its sparseness giving way to growling guitars that brood like distant thunder as complex vocal layers move it from the delicate to the dense; ‘Bold And Free’ is a great showcase of how great her voice is… as if you haven’t already noticed and ‘Shame’ blends ethereal soundscapes with brooding gothic textures, restless dance beats with relentless slow-burning anticipation. By contrast, ‘Another Season’ feels straight out of the 70s Laurel Canyon songbook, but never like it doesn’t belong here.
And, great as the music is, and it is, it is the messages and dialogues that these songs instigate that make the album so important – about the human condition, how our perceived failings might actually be our greatest strengths, how fear is an ally, how vulnerability is a superpower, feelings that get to the heart of what it actually means to be human.
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