‘Lullaby‘ is the debut track from TAMZENE, the first artist to sign to Belladrum Records – a unique new independent label spun out of the multi-award winning Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival.
TAMZENE is a young 19 year old singer-songwriter from the coastal town of Cromarty in the Scottish Highlands; a highly talented multi-instrumentalist, she started learning piano and violin when she was eight years old, encouraged by her saxophonist stepfather and salsa teaching mother. Aged 14 she further extended her musical dexterity by quickly picking up guitar and embarked on writing her own material.
Her early influences came from hearing the Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin and Eva Cassidy songs played around the home- and quickly progressed to immersing herself in the sound of artists including Nina Simone, Birdy and Alicia Keys.
A scholarship took TAMZENE to the world famous Gordonstoun School where teachers played a critical role in nurturing her interest in music. The need to raise money for a school project to build water tanks in Thailand started her busking career on the streets of the Highland capital, Inverness. Her mother optimistically gave her a guitar case for the coins and she was adopted by a friendly Big Issue seller who kept a protective eye on her.
Having spent the last year building her live profile across a host of venues and festivals, she is currently a full time student at Leeds College of Music. After a long period writing songs on her own, she has recently started collaborating with one of Scotland’s leading songwriters and producers, Joe McAlinden, at his studio in rural Argyll- a creative relationship which is seeing the young artist develop a bolder, more coherent musical identity. Her tender, soulful debut offering, ‘Lullaby’, was written and recorded with McAlinden and mixed by Grammy Award winner David Donaldson.
The video received it’s premier on Clash Music.
Al Donnelly and Jamie Macdonald from Team Netsounds filmed the video for ‘Lullaby’ the day after Tamzene’s appearance at the Groove Cairngorm Festival in February this year. We have to say we are pretty chuffed being part of this and we are delighted with the magic that editor and colorist Mike Guest sprinkled on this.
Tamzene’s live session she recorded for us at 2016’s Beladrum Festival is one of our most viewed sessions and won her an ever increasing army of fans. You can view the session from Belladrum here.
Belladrum Records Director Joe Gibbs said: “As one of the most exciting new artists we’ve seen in some time, we’re thrilled that TAMZENE will be the first act to sign with Belladrum Records. The Highlands has always had a deep natural reservoir of musical talent and we’re delighted that these artists have the option of partnering with a strong regionally based label infrastructure- a platform which is also directly associated with one of Scotland’s biggest and best music festivals. With the creation of this new label, the diversity of the music industry in the Highlands and Islands continues to grow and our ambition is to complement the incredible range of creative businesses already based across this fantastic region.”