Our Calling

The British-Italian folk songwriter Piers Faccini and the Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko (Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté, Derek Gripper) first met via their mutual record label, Label Bleu, in the early 2000s; such was their mutual admiration that Sissoko appeared on Faccini’s 2005 album Tearing Sky, his tumbling wash of chords buoying the moving stillness, the static motion, inherent in Faccini’s music. Cross-cultural dialogue would prove vital to the oeuvres of both men – Faccini sang in Bambara on Sissoko’s 2021 album Djourou – and on this acoustic pairing they double down on their message. First single ‘Borne on the Wind’ uses the migration of the nightingale between West Africa and Europe, unfettered by border crossings, as a metaphor, the crystalline sonority of the kora blending with Faccini’s melodic brilliance and just-so English language lyrics. As it does across all ten tracks (including the Italian-language ‘Ninna Nanna’), in ways spacious, clever and achingly beautiful.