The Denmark-based Tunisian producer Ammar 808, aka Sofyann Ben Youssef, brings a deep fascination with texture to his work. It starts with the TR-808 bass synthesiser from which he takes his numero de plume — a deep, squelchy rumble that often serves as an unsteady foundation in his tracks.
His first solo album, Maghreb United, was a north Afrofuturist manifesto that brought gimbri, gasba and zokra to a science-fictional landscape. His second, Global Control/Invisible Invasion, was a Chennai-based dancefloor-infused take on The Mahabharata. Now, on Club Tounsi, his scope is surprisingly smaller. This is an explicitly Tunisian album, based around mezoued. This genre of village-folk-gone-urban became…