Introducing
TAMINO
Listen to the Belgian/Egyptian Artist’s
Evocative Debut Music
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“sheer vitality enfolding you in wisps of imposing, majestic sound” – CLASH
“a fierce new talent” – The Sunday Times
“There’s a richness and weight to [Tamino’s voice] that seems steeped in the culture of his Egyptian heritage, a solemnness and intensity that belies his age, and an astonishing vocal range” – The Independent.
Introducing the atmospheric confessional of 21-year-old half Egyptian half Belgian artist, Tamino. With his new singles, ‘Habibi’ and ‘Indigo Night’ – taken from his forthcoming EP ‘Habibi‘ due May 4 via Communion / Caroline Australia – Tamino debuts his unique, captivating, vocals and evocative songwriting style.
Tamino – named after the hero of Mozart’s The Magic Flute – grew up ensconced in the music of Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Waits, and Arabic music such as that by Oum Kalthoum and Tamino’s grandfather, Moharam Fouad too. His music owes much to the intricacies that shaped his musical upbringing, but his music recalls more the raw intimacy and starkness of Jeff Buckley and the brooding atmospherics of Ben Howard than either the bourbon-toned Waits or Gainsbourg.
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Aptly, from a musician whose upbringing and trans-nationality elude narrow questions of provenance and pigeonholes, it is at once ancient and modern, conjuring, in its portrayal of a love that is majestic but doomed, the romantic decadence of Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and the scorched-earth, ripped-from-the-heart poetry of Nick Cave. Musically, it is, like so much pop today, all over the place, uncategorisable, gloriously impervious to considerations of style, fashion and commerce. In that sense, it is totally now. At the same time, there is something so other-worldly, so defiantly individualistic, about Tamino’s songwriting, his octave-traversing voice and ethereal falsetto that attempting to categorise them, or him, quickly seems futile.
Another unmissable feature of Tamino’s music is his use of Arabic vocal and tonal inflections. They crept in, he says, and it took him a while to realise. “At first, it wasn’t at all deliberate, they just slipped in to the music. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it.” Yet the aim has, Tamino emphasises, always been to find unusual combinations, to join the dots and in the process locate new sounds and textures.
‘Indigo Night’ features the services of Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass, an early, supportive fan of Tamino’s music. “Colin and I have a few mutual friends. We met a couple of times by pure coincidence. Last summer he came to one of my hometown shows in Antwerp and was very enthusiastic about the music. I felt like we spoke the same musical language when we talked afterwards. When we started recording we noticed we missed some bass guitar parts in a couple of songs. Colin felt like the perfect match because of his melodic playing, whilst keeping an incredible groove. I’m honoured to have him playing on my songs.”
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Stream INDIGO NIGHT
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Connect With TAMINO
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AMN – DH
[Tamino’s voice] that seems steeped in the culture of his Egyptian heritage, a solemnness and intensity that belies his age, and an astonishing vocal range” – The Independent
.
Introducing the atmospheric confessional of 21-year-old half Egyptian half Belgian artist, Tamino. With his new singles, ‘Habibi’ and ‘Indigo Night’ – taken from his forthcoming EP ‘Habibi‘ due May 4 via Communion / Caroline Australia – Tamino debuts his unique, captivating, vocals and evocative songwriting style.
Tamino – named after the hero of Mozart’s The Magic Flute – grew up ensconced in the music of Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Waits, and Arabic music such as that by Oum Kalthoum and Tamino’s grandfather, Moharam Fouad too. His music owes much to the intricacies that shaped his musical upbringing, but his music recalls more the raw intimacy and starkness of Jeff Buckley and the brooding atmospherics of Ben Howard than either the bourbon-toned Waits or Gainsbourg.
.
.
Aptly, from a musician whose upbringing and trans-nationality elude narrow questions of provenance and pigeonholes, it is at once ancient and modern, conjuring, in its portrayal of a love that is majestic but doomed, the romantic decadence of Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and the scorched-earth, ripped-from-the-heart poetry of Nick Cave. Musically, it is, like so much pop today, all over the place, uncategorisable, gloriously impervious to considerations of style, fashion and commerce. In that sense, it is totally now. At the same time, there is something so other-worldly, so defiantly individualistic, about Tamino’s songwriting, his octave-traversing voice and ethereal falsetto that attempting to categorise them, or him, quickly seems futile.
Another unmissable feature of Tamino’s music is his use of Arabic vocal and tonal inflections. They crept in, he says, and it took him a while to realise. “At first, it wasn’t at all deliberate, they just slipped in to the music. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it.” Yet the aim has, Tamino emphasises, always been to find unusual combinations, to join the dots and in the process locate new sounds and textures.
‘Indigo Night’ features the services of Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on bass, an early, supportive fan of Tamino’s music. “Colin and I have a few mutual friends. We met a couple of times by pure coincidence. Last summer he came to one of my hometown shows in Antwerp and was very enthusiastic about the music. I felt like we spoke the same musical language when we talked afterwards. When we started recording we noticed we missed some bass guitar parts in a couple of songs. Colin felt like the perfect match because of his melodic playing, whilst keeping an incredible groove. I’m honoured to have him playing on my songs.”
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Stream INDIGO NIGHT
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.
.
Connect With TAMINO
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.
