Bass, Spirits, and UFO: The intergalactic tale of Ammar 808’s musical journey

Posted On May 22, 2025May 22, 2025

Editor’s Note: AMMAR 808 is a project by Tunisian producer and electronic master Sofyann Ben Youssef. His upcoming album, Club Tounsi, is due for release on May 23rd via Glitterbeat Records and promises to be just as expansive, infectious, and floor-shaking as his 2018 debut.

Ahead of that album, Youssef asked to pen an op-ed piece for us, detailing his musical origin story, with a particular focus on his various supernatural encounters. Charting his journey from traditional Tunisian folk to the pounding electronic rhythms he delivers today, this is the story of AMMAR 808. 

My story doesn’t start with machines or synths; it starts with the sounds of memories. Growing up in Tunisia, I was surrounded by Tunisian music—raw, visceral, deeply rooted in the celebration and silent sorrows of everyday life. 

I didn’t know then that music would be the foundation of a lifelong journey. But somewhere between childhood weddings pulsing with darbouka rhythms and late adult nights alone with strange sounds bouncing through my headphones, something happened in my head: music was a portal. Not just to other places, but to deeper layers of reality. And for that to happen, I had to experience three important events.

At the age of six, I experienced something that defied all rational explanation – I lived with my family in a ‘proper’ haunted house. Believe me, I know how it sounds, but when you share the terror with the whole family, that is something else. That was a poltergeist event that shattered my understanding of the world at a young age. 

It wasn’t subtle. It was loud, physical, immediate. Objects moved on their own. A presence filled the room, a thick, electric atmosphere that pushed into the corners of my chest. I couldn’t ignore it. For the first time, I felt like I was being watched not by a person or a camera, but by something else entirely. It wasn’t malevolent, but it was undeniable. I felt the boundary between the seen and unseen dissolve.

Then came the sky. On another evening, far from city lights, I witnessed something that still echoes in my subconscious, a hovering form, neither plane nor star, moving in speeds and trajectories that defy the laws of physics. A UFO? Maybe. But again, not like the ones in movies. This was more sentient. It was as if the sky opened a window and something looked back. The moment was silent, charged, filled with a strange kind of recognition. Like an ancient question had just been asked, and I had no words for the answer. Suddenly, the world became much bigger.

These experiences didn’t scare me. They shook me, yes. But they also opened something. A space for mystery. A reminder that not everything is meant to be understood, and maybe that’s where real understanding begins. I started hearing music differently – not as entertainment, but as a message, a vibration from beyond.

The biggest shift came with something more internal: my Ayahuasca initiation. That ceremony was a turning point. It wasn’t just about visions or emotions; it was like the architecture of my thoughts cracked open. 

Ayahuasca allowed me to experience the death of my own ego. I also experienced a vast structure beyond time, something infinite yet intimate. For the first time, all my scattered memories, questions, and cultural fascinations seemed to align. It brought a strange peace. Suddenly, everything made sense—not because I found answers, but because I realised I didn’t need them. What I did need was to trust the feeling, the instinct, the vibration and that all is one and everything is made from the same thing.

During the ceremony, I encountered presences: spirits, entities made of sound and strange shapes. They didn’t speak in words, but they felt familiar like ancient guides, or echoes of other lives. One of them showed me how sound isn’t just a medium—it’s reality itself. A rhythm could be a message, a low bass frequency could be a form of healing. I felt my identity dissolve into vibration. For a moment, I was not Ammar. I was a pulse moving through endless space.

After these experiences, I began listening differently. Not just with my ears, but with something deeper. Music stopped being about what sounded ‘good’ or ‘right.’ It became about what felt real—what resonated in the bones, in the breath. I started seeking the universal in the specific: the groove that sounds like the desert’s heartbeat, the synth bass that hums like a spacecraft preparing for liftoff. I wanted to touch that place where folklore and science ‘fiction’ collapse into one another.

One of the clearest manifestations of this shift was my project in India. I listened for years before recording a single sound.  When I finally started making music, something ancestral stirred. People I met there often told me, half-jokingly, that I must have been Indian in a past life to understand Indian music this way. But maybe it’s not about past lives. Maybe it’s about recognising the present moment as part of something much older, much wider, and just as alive.

That album was a turning point. It wasn’t just a sonic experiment; it was the sound of everything aligning. The ritual, the rhythm, the bass. Since then, I’ve carried that clarity into every project, I try to hold onto that sense of connection. That music is not just sound—it’s a map of what we are and what we could be.

I don’t claim to understand it all. That’s not the point. But I do believe that when we listen—really listen—we can begin to hear the outlines of something larger than ourselves. Call it spirit, call it a UFO, call it the echo of bass from some forgotten future. It’s all there, waiting.

The world is definitely stranger than we can understand. A fascinating world waiting to be explored. That’s what drives me. That’s Ammar 808.

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