Tour to begin in Ashburton for singer-songwriter Tallulah

SINGER-songwriter Tallulah Rendall will bring her deeply personal new album Only Human to Ashburton as she launches a UK tour exploring resilience, loss and emotional healing.

The tour, which kicks off on October 9 at Ashburton Arts Centre, marks the first opportunity for audiences to hear Rendall’s seventh album performed live as she begins a series of dates supporting a record she describes as her most vulnerable and honest.

Only Human was shaped by Rendall’s experiences of a toxic relationship, the death of her father from Covid and her own journey through shame, anxiety, depression and recovery.

Across 12 songs, she explores what it means to lose a sense of self – and the often difficult process of finding a way back.

The album follows the success of her previous record Love Carries Me Home, and was partly inspired by the inclusion of its song I Am Enough on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.

The response to the track gave Rendall the confidence to be even more open about the experiences behind her music.

‘Only Human is a kind of sister or companion album to Love Carries Me Home’, she says.

‘It’s almost like the behind-the-scenes process around shame, anxiety, depression, courage and belonging and what it feels like to experience those emotions, and the often-messy journey of finding our way back to ourselves’,

Rendall hopes the album can do more than simply tell her own story.

She has created it as an immersive artistic project intended to encourage conversations around emotional wellbeing and remind listeners that they are not alone.

That approach reflects a second strand of Rendall’s career.

Alongside her work as a musician, she is a qigong teacher, sound therapist and creative facilitator – practices that grew from her own experience of burnout, severe anaemia, panic attacks and depression following a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Japan in 2011.

A meeting with a Taoist acupuncturist priest introduced her to qigong and acupuncture, fundamentally changing her approach to both life and music.

‘The more I delved into this world of practices that supported my nervous system, the more my style of music and lyrics transformed’, she says.

That therapeutic influence runs throughout Only Human.

The opening track, Human, is a tender meditation on compassion, imperfection and resilience, while October Skies explores the possibility of loving again after abuse.

Elsewhere, Bold And Free is an empowering celebration of feminine strength and self-expression, while Run confronts panic and fear.

On Shame, Rendall turns one of the most universal of human emotions into a statement of self-worth.

‘I will not feel shame for asking for more’, she sings, capturing the album’s wider message of reclaiming confidence and setting boundaries.

The record moves between organic trip-hop, cinematic electronic folk and atmospheric soundscapes, with Rendall’s distinctive voice at its centre.

Her vocals have previously been described by Uncut as ‘soaring’ and ‘expansive’, evoking Patti Smith and Jeff Buckley.

The album is also accompanied by one of Rendall’s trademark art-driven books, housing the CD and a QR code giving fans access to additional material including guided meditations, qigong practices, mental health resources, exclusive demos, remixes, photography and a podcast exploring music and mental health.

For Rendall, the Ashburton show represents the beginning of a tour built around an album with a simple but powerful message: healing does not require perfection.

‘I hope with all my heart this album encourages or inspires you to take greater care of yourself, to ask for help when you are struggling and to remind you, that you are only human, and that we can learn, grow and transform’, she says.

Tickets are on sale at www.tallulahrendall.com/events