Primordial Black’s Yasser Mahammedi Bouzina: “I needed to build my own sonic world”
From four working guitars and plugin-based tones to vocals, textures and studio production, Yasser Mahammedi Bouzina talks through the gear and ideas behind his work with Primordial Black in Carthage, Tunisia.
For Yasser Mahammedi Bouzina, music started as a way to make sense of what was already building inside him. In Carthage, Tunisia, he was drawn early to extreme and atmospheric music, and that connection still shapes the way he writes, records and builds the world around Primordial Black: “I’ve always felt things intensely, and music was the first thing that gave shape to that chaos. Extreme and atmospheric sounds especially felt honest, like they didn’t hide the darkness. I started playing because listening wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to create, to control the tension, and to build my own sonic world.”
In Primordial Black, Bouzina mainly handles guitars and vocals, but his role goes further than that. He also works on the sound design and the atmospheric and string parts that help hold the band’s material together.
Guitar sits at the centre of that. What keeps him there is the force of the instrument, but also the way it pushes back: “I chose guitar because it felt powerful and limitless. The sound was the first hook, capable of being both violent and atmospheric at the same time. It can crush and still breathe. That duality fascinated me. I love the physicality of it too – the weight, the vibration, the way it responds to your hands. It’s not passive. You fight it a little, and that tension becomes part of the expression. There’s also the culture around it, especially in extreme music. It’s intense, honest, uncompromising. No masks. No pretending. And the challenge keeps me addicted. There’s always something new to discover, a heavier tone to sculpt, a darker atmosphere to build.”
Yasser Mahammedi Bouzina’s guitar stand (left); ESP LTD-MH17 (right)
“The ritualistic darkness of Rotting Christ, the existential atmosphere of Gaerea, and the melodic brutality of Celtic Frost all influenced me in different ways.”
That sense of weight and space carries into the way he describes his sound. Bouzina is after something heavy, but he also wants atmosphere, tension and shape.
“If someone’s never heard me play, I’d say this: imagine extreme metal treated like a ritual space – oppressive, immersive and emotionally charged. I’d describe my sound as cinematic blackened intensity. It’s built around tension, space and emotional weight. There’s distortion and density, and there’s depth. It’s shaped a lot by bands that build whole worlds through their riffs. The ritualistic darkness of Rotting Christ, the existential atmosphere of Gaerea, and the melodic brutality of Celtic Frost all influenced me in different ways. Beyond bands, I’m inspired by literature, cinematic sound design, and the idea of music as architecture – something you can almost walk through.”
Inside Primordial Black, Bouzina’s role stretches across the whole process. He writes, builds, produces and then takes that work onto the stage: “Yes, I’m part of Primordial Black. My role is mainly focused on composing, building tracks from scratch, setting the framework and producing. On stage, I sing and play guitar. The studio is where I feel most at home. That’s where I can sculpt. I experiment with textures, ambient transitions and harmonic movement.”
One moment that sharpened his approach came while working on Dark Matter Manifesto, especially through the experience of collaborating with Sakis Tolis: “Seeing how someone with that level of experience approaches emotion and conviction taught me that authenticity carries more weight than complexity. I also learned that atmosphere isn’t decoration. The synths, textures and samples I build aren’t background; they’re part of the spine of the song. That’s something I learned from masters like Akira Yamaoka, Trent Reznor and Kenji Kawai. The biggest lesson? Serve the song, not your ego. Technique matters, but intention matters more. Every sound has to justify its existence. That mindset changed everything about how I play and create.”
That thread runs through everything he says about Primordial Black. Bouzina is chasing weight, atmosphere and honesty, but always with intention behind it: “Everything I create comes from the tension between darkness and clarity, chaos and intention. I’m not here to make background music. I want it to feel like something you confront, something that stays with you. With Primordial Black, I build sound like a space you can step into – layered, atmospheric, and driven by emotion as much as technique. The themes I explore, identity, fragmentation and inner duality, are ways for me to make sense of the world. You don’t need to fully understand it to feel it. If it resonates or unsettles you, then it’s doing its job. At the end of the day, it’s about creating something honest, something that helps people face parts of themselves they don’t always see.”
Primordial Black’s debut full-length album, Dark Matter Manifesto, was released on 2 May 2025 through Darkside Records and is available digitally, on CD and on vinyl.
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Joel Costa is a music and gear editor with over two decades of experience. He has written for and led titles such as Metal Hammer Portugal, Terrorizer, Ultraje, BassEmpi.re and Guitarrista. He has also worked in music PR and led record labels. Across those magazines, he helped publish interviews and features with artists ranging from Metallica, Zakk Wylde, Ghost, Judas Priest, and Mastodon to Pat Smear (Nirvana), Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains), Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order), Mohini Dey, and KMFDM. He is the author of books on Kurt Cobain and The Beatles.
