"...This glinting, dramatic,pan-American music, which demands to be heard in one extensive sitting, is like running through the streets of Manhattan at hyperspeed ....This is an unselfconsciously powerful, important achievement that plays like a grand, expensive love letter to the city from Hanrahan, who, thankfully, is more a romantic than a musicologist."  
-Tom Moon, Musician December 1990

"...Hanrahan's albums are born of a logic and vision which transcends the limitations of style.  Unique in its diversity, Hanrahan's music is also unique in its singularity... 'Tenderness' cuts even closer to the bone.  The rich variety of influences are melded rather than mixed; the result is dark, thorny and uncompromising..."
-David Ilic, City Limits Magazine (London) Nov 29, 1990

"...This album is about arriving at that sexy state of grace called "Tenderness," which is no mean feat, interpersonally or musically.  Hanrahan's album demonstrates that musicians who love risk and challenge, who aren't afraid to smash through cross cultural stylistic walls, are those who communicate the highest state of tenderness."
- Norman Weinstein, Los Angeles Reader, September 7, 1990

"...the object is beautiful.  A dark voice, thousands of drums, clearly identifiable, a enigmatic atmosphere to be explored, immediately.."
- Sylvain Siclier, Affiche (France)

"...If there were such a category as 'musica erotica',  this would qualify.  But don't expect heavy breathing.  This has depth.  Hanrahan takes you on a psycho-sexual journey that throbs with passion.  Not for the faint hearted, this is a turn-on for men as well as women.  The lyrics explore sensuality like forbidden fruit.  The music is a driving, grinding pulsating mix of rhythms.  And that's just the intro!  ...Tenderness is a story, a feeling and a sound concept captured with absolute mastery.  Listen to it with someone you love."
-Jazz Quarterly

Plenty of great musicians who've tried to forge a global language out of the boiling stew of Pan-American rhythms and melodies have come up empty - producing music with no cultural imperative, not guts and no soul.  But on Tenderness... Kip Hanrahan achieves something of a miracle: a music that reaches across the cultural divide and
emerges as sensuous, jarring, provocative, wryly hilarious and profoundly beautiful. ...Awesome."
-Jory Farr, The Press Enterprise (Riverside, CA)

"...the rhythmically riveting song cycle uses archetypes of courting and coupling as its conceptual pe, and a mating dance dialogue between first person singular, male first person singular, female ... Hanrahan has managed another fiery fusion that makes terms like 'eclectic world beat'  seem beside the point."
-Bob Townsend,
-Atlanta Journal Constitution

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