Our Calling

The New Duo Album by Piers Faccini & Ballake Sissoko: Our Calling. Two decades after their very first collaboration, British-Italian folk songwriter Piers Faccini and Malian kora virtuoso, Ballake Sissoko return with a mesmerizing album: Our Calling. Set for release in February 2025, this fascinating dialogue between a virtuoso instrumentalist at the peak of his powers and an inspired songwriter and wordsmith, succeeds in creating new song forms with a lightness of touch that bridges continents and plays with tradition. Through ten exquisitely crafted tracks, Our Calling is a sonic and narrative praise song for migration in all its forms. The two friends' entirely acoustic dialogue was recorded in Paris side by side and live in the studio over five days. The album's originality is that it feels deeply Malian at its musical core, all the while being seamlessly infused with an essence of folk songwriting, sung in the English language. Recorded by Frederic Soulard (Shapes of the Fall), the album unites an extraordinary cast of musicians, including Vincent Segal, Badje Tounkara, and Malik Ziad.