Tenderness – The Salt Flats (Amorphous Sounds)
Ahead of album True being released in March Tenderness shares Americana-infused single The Salt Flats, shimmering with equal measures of hope and melancholy
Artist: Tenderness
Track: The Salt Flats
Label: Amorphous Sounds
Release date: 7 January 2026
Find it: Bandcamp
Shimmering with equal parts hope and melancholy is The Salt Flats, the single shared by Tenderness – the solo project of Katy Beth Young (Peggy Sue, Deep Throat Choir) – ahead of the release of her debut album, True, this March. For the most depressing day of January (at least if you believe the marketing hype) it holds your hand while you wallow, and then lifts the spirit to look to brighter days ahead.
The track is expansive, feeling around the edges of what might be love to test whether it is real and solid or a hazy illusion you’re just passing by. There’s gentle and mellow instrumentation, beautiful vocal harmonies: subtle but stunning indie folk.
‘One week of silence / And one day of talking with our hands / One good night’s sleep / And a whole summer of other plans’
“The Salt Flats is a song about trying to hold onto good moments, and how impossible that is. Joy, peace, adoration, they’re all very slippery emotions. The song lives in the moment of gentle panic – the good feeling, already leaving. We tried to build that into the music through the synths and the rhythms – a pulling forwards and backwards at once. A kind of nostalgia. I finished writing the song in my friend Martha Rose’s apartment in Berlin, so it was really perfect that she and my friend Benjamin Gregory could do the backing vocals – their voices are the melancholy cherry on top.”
Tenderness‘ debut album, True, was born out of struggle with everything from the pandemic to a break-up to grief. Raw and tender, reality and fantasy, technology and very human community all get explored on a record which is very personal and yet expansive and searching too. The Salt Flats introduces a quiet companion of an album which won’t make demands of you but holds your heart gently all the same.
The Salt Flats by Tenderness is out digitally now. Album True is set for release on 13 March 2026.
Find Tenderness: Bandcamp | Instagram
Live dates:
- 20 January – Hope and Ruin, Brighton
- 21 January – Bush Hall, London
- 22 January – YES, Manchester
- 23 January – The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham
- 24 January – Bluebird Bakery, York (Sold Out)
- 18 March – St Pancras Old Church, London
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Sarah Lay
A long-standing music journalist she's also co-founder of independent record label Reckless Yes, an author of novels, and when not messing around with words and music, a digital strategist.
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