The French producer is pulling out of his dates in Australia and Indonesia, two days before the first show. In a message posted this Wednesday, he speaks of mental health that has been deteriorating for several years and panic attacks that never leave him.
We first knew him as a teenager, the Rouen prodigy who wrote “Sunset Lover” in his bedroom at fifteen, a track now approaching a billion streams. Ten years on, Mehdi Benjelloun has chosen to speak about what that journey has cost him.
This Wednesday, he announced he was cancelling his Australian and Indonesian dates, apologising to those who already had tickets and to the local teams who had put the shows together. He explains that he long kept quiet out of reserve, before deciding he owed it to his audience to be honest. He then describes mental health that has been declining for several years, moments of joy that have become hard to savour, and panic attacks that have never stopped and have even got worse. He also says he knows how lucky he is to make a living from his music, and it is perhaps this nuance that hits hardest: gratitude doesn’t cancel out exhaustion.
The irony will have escaped no one. His next album is called “Insomnia”. It comes out on 21 October on Écurie, his label, and he describes it as his most contemplative record, shaped by film scores and ambient music. An artist who built his career outside the traditional circuits has chosen to stop just as everything was meant to start up again. Within a few hours, messages of support poured in, from fans and peers alike.
