Genital mutilation is a subject rarely tackled in popular music; even more rarely, I’d imagine, when it’s the male version under the microscope (so to speak). But here it is, by the Fat White Family.

If you’re a man (and I was when I last looked) you might need a strong stomach for this video by the Fat White Family. Not for the visuals, which recall The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony, relocated to Algeria, but for the story Lias Saoudi tells.

It’s the true tale of the singer’s big brother Tamlan’s brutal circumcision at the age of five – without anaesthetic – in the mountains of Algeria. Making it more poignant, the video was shot by Tamlan on location in Maillot, the small town concerned, from which the Saoudi family hail.

According to Lias, his brother – recently deported from China after 15 years living there – began recounting his traumatic childhood experience in front of their parents over Christmas.

They had heard the story before but this time he added a post script about another circumcision ceremony he had attended several years later for their younger cousin Amine.

Apparently, Tamlan grabbed the satchel traditionally used to store the severed foreskin, and whirled it around his head while guests celebrated the circumcision by dancing around him.

“I can think of few weirder things that might happen to you at age five tha getting shipped from northern England to Kabylie (the mountainous coastal region of northern Algeria) for this,” Lias remarked of his brother’s ordeal. “Once you rotate back to Huddersfield, who have you got to share your experience with?

“At least the little lads in Maillot have got each other; they’re brothers of the olde-worlde chop. It’s part of their collective identity.”