Maghreb United (2018)
10 tracks, 36 minutes
Bandcamp ∙ Spotify ∙ iTunes
Together with the last two entries, this week has become a trio of modernised North African sounds, each putting their own unique stamp on the traditions. AMMAR 808 goes probably the most left-field of them all.
AMMAR 808 is Sofyann Ben Youssef, Tunisian producer and synth player and the owner of an incredibly wide range of musical expertise: jazz, metal, rock, Tuareg music, classical music of Arabic, Western and Indian flavours and all sorts of electronica – they’re all in Ben Youssef’s wheelhouse, and they all go towards the headspace that flowers into his work as AMMAR 808.
Maghreb United is Ben Youssef’s first album under this particular moniker, inspired by the upheaval of political systems and societies in the Maghrebi countries – Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco – over the past decade. In this period of revolution and subsequent rebuilding, people are looking to radically different ways of doing things, and with Maghreb United, Ben Youssef takes it to the extreme, creating a musical sci-fi that is indelibly rooted in the region’s musical styles. To create this style of ‘Maghrebi bass,’ he enlisted three singers from different spheres across the region, each adding their own sound and style: Cheb Hassen Tej, a specialist in Targ music from Tunisia; Sofiane Saidi, Algeria’s star of nu-rai; and Medhi Nassouli, a Gnawa musician who also plays the guimbri lute, from Morocco; also involved on several tracks is Tunisian gasba (flute) and zokra (bagpipes) player Lassad Boughalmi.
These musicians all gave their own musical perspectives on each of their respective styles (all but one of the tracks on the album are derived from traditional songs), and from them, together with a studioful of synthesisers, drum machines (especially the fabled Roland TR-808) and a fair few extra samples, Ben Youssef juggles all these influences together to create the new traditional music of the pan-Maghrebi space colony. This is deep bass and dark techno as if they were traditional music, evolving in the urban metropolises and arid deserts over a thousand years or more. Ben Youssef’s personal connection to these styles means that his application of electronica is in perfect harmony with their original musical intentions, while creating music that reaches beyond club banger. The scale is so epic as to render the dancefloor irrelevant – it will hit you where you stand, take you out of your mind and throw you into a world of booming trance, making your limbs move and emptying your brain of all but that most essential reverberating sound.
This is Afrofuturism, North Africa style: a utopian vision of a Maghreb post-revolution, post-nation-state, and definitely not Earthbound. In an exciting time for Maghrebi music in general, AMMAR 808 is a game changer. Maghreb United is just the beginning. Ben Youssef is currently recording album #2, with Tamil musicians – this space journey is set to take a different course. I can’t wait.
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