Name: Haythem Mahbouli

Nationality: Tunisian
Occupation: Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, sound designer
Current Release: Haythem Mahbouli's Last Man On Earth is out December 2nd 2022 via Schole.
Recommendations: Jóhann Jóhannsson - Virðulegu forsetar; Gavin Bryars - Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet

If you enjoyed this interview with Haythem Mahbouli and would like to stay up to date with the project, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started playing guitar when I was 13. In the beginning I was just interested in replaying my favorite rock / metal songs, then I started to get seriously involved in the process of learning the instrument.

The more knowledge I acquire, the wider my musical influences get. On top of that, my mother was a big cinema lover, so each time she was watching a movie, I was just sitting there, absorbing the images, music, and sound. Around the age of 18, I was really into film music, and started to listen to movie scores, and try to learn more about film composers.

In the end, what drew me the most into sound and music, is the emotional response that you receive: it was so powerful and beyond words …

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colors. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

For me it’s images and scenes!

This is how I compose: I always need a setting, a theme to build around the composition, and it’s from this setting that I try to express these images in my head with music and sound.

It needs to have a true emotion that you can feel deep inside of you.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Early on, when I start composing music, I realized how important sounds are, and it became an obsession for me the get the right sound texture for the right musical notes. It was and still is very hard to create sounds that serve the music, it can play a tremendous role in terms of emotions. The same notes with different sounds, can translate a complete different emotional response on each listener.

So, for me, it’s always a challenge to craft the right sounds for the right emotions. The separation between music and sound became blurry, almost non-existent.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

This is a very complex question. In this world we are all looking for our identity, it’s constantly evolving and a never-ending search.

As an artist you need to keep progressing so you always renew yourself according to your search of identity.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

Art needs to be true, sincere, and coming from your inner self.
Art also needs to break rules.
Art is an adventure, seeking for your true self.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I think the two concepts are connected somehow; Tradition serves as a base to build the music of the future.

Originality is very difficult, sometime people waste time for the sake of being original.

Perfection is also difficult, in the end, I think perfection doesn’t really exist, what’s perfect for someone, is not for another. Personally, I’ve never been interested in perfection, I like the imperfection, this is what makes us true, human, and honest.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

The guitar is my main instrument. I used to practice around 10 hours a day, but as I was evolving, I started to shift more towards sound design. So now, before writing the music, I begin by working on creating a sound palette.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

People don’t know this about me, but besides my music /c omposing, I work as an audio director in the video game industry, so my days are kinda busy.

My day starts when I wake up at 9 AM. I go through my emails, do some planning for the day or the week. Lunch around 1 PM, then it’s sound design creation and meetings here and there till 6PM. 6:30PM, I go to the gym, and comeback home around 8 PM. Dinner with my wife and we spend some time together.

I’ll go to my bat cave around 10PM, where it’s music time (composing, creation) until 2AM (I know it’s late, I’m a night owl). Afterwards, go to bed …

Could you describe your creative process based on a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

My last album Last man on earth:

In the begging, I started composing music illustrating the Chernobyl incident (how the liquidators risk their life to clean the central from radioactive debris …) But at that time, the HBO series Chernobyl [with a score composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir] came out, so I thought that I had to change the theme that I’m working on.

[Read our Hildur Guðnadóttir interview]

After weeks I began to build this story in my head about the end of humanity and how we failed preserving the planet and tried, at any cost, to prevail the humanity species by sending a chosen colony around the galaxy, finding a new home. Meanwhile, the planet earth was dying and years and years after, there’s still one last man living his final hours and delivering his last message on planet earth. It’s a concept album, so all the tracks are linked and meant to be listened in one sitting. It tells the whole story from start to finish.

I composed the first track and the last track in the first months, then worked on filling the music story in-between. It’s a very personal album, it describes my feelings toward humanity.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

It depends on the project. If it’s a project that I built from scratch, I like being involved early on, on my own. By the time the project is mature, I like to have some extra input to elevate the outcome.

If it’s a project that I was brought on after, I like both alone and a collaboration, but it needs to respect the privacy of each contributor.

I’m not a very “on the spot type of person” when it comes to creativity. In order to come up with ideas, I need to be alone. Afterward I don’t mind discussing it.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

My music is out there and can be heard basically by anyone in the world. I hope that my work can reach people’s heart.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

As a composer, most of the time my composition turns around these topics, life death, loss etc. I’m constantly thinking about life, the meaning, goals etc… Actually, my first album Catching moment in time, was a reflection on these topics.



In 2018, I was going through a very difficult time punctuated with panic attacks and anxiety so I based the album around the most important moments spent in our lifetime.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other? 

I don’t see an obvious connection between the two, maybe in terms of acoustics, vibration pitch etc… which can be explained in very scientific ways.

For me, science is precise, calculated, and predictable in a sense where you can anticipate the results. On the other hand music is more un-precise, unpredictable and, sometimes, can be chaos.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Emotions: I think there’s nothing more powerful than music to reach people’s heart.

Emotions are a very complex and subjective topic. Personally I don’t know any other form except art to express sincere-right through the heart type of emotion.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

I think some questions don’t need explanations.

It’s good to keep some mystery, especially when it comes to feelings and emotions felt though music. It let us wonder about it and use our imagination …

Music is very subconscious oriented. It evokes different signals in our subconscious, and each person relate to it with their own life experience.