Our Calling (2025)

"Malian kora master Ballaké Sissoko and British Italian songwriter Piers Faccini deliver a full-blown album as a duo, taking the migration of nightingales as their inspiration and following one’s calling as their theme. It’s a gentle, captivating work, its songs soaked in nature imagery and beautifully married to Sissoko’s intricate, dazzling playing. Faccini’s high, reedy vocals are not the sturdiest, but he’s in robust form here. The songs are packed with longing, whether the pull of another country, a return home or a lost love. "One Half Of A Dream" is impatient to go, blown along by Sissoko’s gusting kora, while "Mournful Moon" and "North and South" are steeped in desert blues. A different mood comes with "Ninna Nanna", an Italian folk song that’s the only piece not in English, its staccato lyrics leavened by Ségal’s cello. "Borne on the Wind" is an ode to the wind under bird’s wing that doubles as a paean to lost love – “the light of her song long gone”. Gorgeous stuff." (Guardian; 4 uit 5 sterren)