It’s a tale as old as time: boy writes songs, an orchestra comprised of Iraqi and Syrian refugees approaches him to see if he’ll sing on their interpretations of music by his grandfather (who was a huge star in Egypt in the Sixties), boy asks them to play on his album instead, boy becomes big in Belgium.
Tamino Moharam Fouad, at 21, is already a big deal in the country where he was raised.
He’s currently in the middle of three sold out concerts in the 1,800-capacity Ancienne Belgique venue in Brussels, before heading to London for a club show next week.
His father’s late father, Moharam Fouad, was a movie star and singer from Cairo known as “The Sound of the Nile”. The music on Tamino’s recent debut album, Amir, comes from a different place. It’s slow-burning indie rock made special by the sounds of that Arabic orchestra, Nagham Zikrayat, and an extraordinary singing voice that sits somewhere in the region of Thom Yorke’s tortured falsetto.
It’s no wonder Radiohead’s bassist Colin Greenwood is a fan. He plays on two of the album’s songs and has also joined Tamino on stage. Jeff Buckley’s name has been thrown around in his vicinity too, but he’s different enough to climb out from under the heavyweight comparisons.
Dec 3, Omeara, SE1. omearalondon.com