Our Calling Piers Faccini & Ballaké Sissoko

• 1 One Half of a Dream 04:12
• 2 I Wanted to Belong 03:49
• 3 If Nothing Is Real 04:05
• 4 Mournful Moon 03:52
• 5 Ninna Nanna 05:07
• 6 Borne on the Wind 04:13
• 7 Go Where Your Eyes 05:57
• 8 Shadows Are 04:19
• 9 North and South 03:16
• 10 By Your Hand 05:03
• Total Runtime 43:53

Info for Our Calling

Two decades after their very first collaboration, British-Italian folk songwriter Piers Faccini and Malian kora virtuoso, Ballaké 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.

The seeds of Our Calling were planted when Sissoko and Faccini first crossed paths at Label Bleu in the early 2000s when they began forming a slow burning friendship over the years, connecting and experimenting in new paths between Manding traditions and British and Mediterranean folk song forms, Sissoko was a guest on Faccini's 2nd solo album Tearing Sky in 2005. In 2020, their dialogue found new inspiration under the banner of the label Nø Førmat!, when Sissoko invited Faccini to sing Kadidja in the Bambara language on his acclaimed album Djourou, and later with The Fire Inside— sparks that ignited their shared vision for the making of their first very duo album together.

Through ten exquisitely crafted tracks, Our Calling is a sonic and narrative praise song for migration in all its forms; be it through Nature, as seed borne on the wind, by birds such as the Nightingale, traveling between West Africa and Europe at the turning of new seasons or by humans, across the centuries and along trade routes, sharing musical modes and rhythms. The two friends’s 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 Frédéric Soulard (Shapes of the Fall), the album unites an extraordinary cast of musicians, including Vincent Segal, Badjé Tounkara, and Malik Ziad.

"The New Duo Album by Piers Faccini & Ballaké Sissoko: Our Calling. Two decades after their very first collaboration, British-Italian folk songwriter Piers Faccini and Malian kora virtuoso, Ballaké 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"s 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 it"s musical core, all the while being seamlessly infused with an essence of folk songwriting, sung in the English language. Recorded by Frédéric Soulard (Shapes of the Fall), the album unites an extraordinary cast of musicians, including Vincent Segal, Badjé Tounkara, and Malik Ziad."

Piers Faccini, guitar, voice
Ballaké Sissoko, Kora
Badjé Tounkara, Ngoniba (One Half Of A Dream), Djeli ngoni (Go Where Your Eyes)
Malik Ziad, Guembri (Mournful Moon, North And South)
Vincent Segal, cello (Mournful Moon, Ninna Nanna)

Recorded by Frédéric Soulard at La Frette Studio, FR, on May 25-29, 2024
Assisted by Anthony Cazade and Thibault Moucron
Mixed by Frédéric Soulard at Studio Méchant, Paris, FR
Mastered by Chab at Chab Mastering, Paris, FR
Executive production and A&R - Anais Ledoux & Laurent Bizot 

Piers Faccini
born in 1970, is a French-Italian singer-songwriter. He is able to fascinate the international audience thanks to his music made of the different influences of the two cultures and languages that shaped him.

Faccini’s career started in 1997 when he founded Charley Marlowe together with poet Francesca Beard, percussionist Frank Byng, and guitarist Luc Suarez. After the release of This Could Be You (2000), however, the band broke up and Faccini carried on with his solo career.

His first successful album was Leave no Trace, published in 2004 by the independent record label Label Bleu, which was followed by Tearing Sky (2006), published by Everloving Records.

Three years later, the record Two Grains of Sand (2009)) granted Faccini the nomination for French independent music award Le Prix Costantin and was voted by listeners of France Inter Radio as Album of the Year.

In 2011 and 2013 Faccini published respectively My Wilderness and Between Dogs and Wolves, while collaborating with international artists such as Rokia Traorè, Ballakè Sissoko, and Vincent Sègal. With the latter, Piers recorded the album Songs of Time Lost (2014), which reached the first positions in NPR and Songline charts that same year. The latest album by Faccini was I Dreamed an Island, published by Ponderosa Music&Arts in 2016. It is a record full of musical contaminations that crosses and fills geographical distances. Faccini’s style blends Provençal atmospheres with baroque guitars and bagpipes and enchanted the Italian public during three concerts in Milan (Salumeria della Musica), Venice (Fondaco dei Tedeschi), and Turin (Folk Club).

Ballaké Sissoko
(Bamako, Mali, 1968), began playing kora, typical griot instrument used by storytellers in West Africa, at a very young age. In 1998 he released his first solo album Kora Music from Mali Kora–Solo Album, while the following year he duetted with Tourmani Diabaté, a renowned Malian griot musician and kora player. In September 2003 Ballaké Sissoko published for Ponderosa Diario Mali, together with Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi. The album traced an ideal journey into the heart of Africa.

In 2005 Sissoko published Tomora, where he collaborated again with Tourmani Diabaté and with artists such as Alboulkadri Barry, Rokia Traoré, and Fanga Diawara. After 2009 collaboration with the cellist Vincent Ségal, in 2013 Sissoko published another solo album: At Peace. A record of remembrance and celebration of his homeland, Mali. The album, made of traditional and evocative sounds, expressed peace and serenity. In 2015 Sissoko engaged in a new collaboration with Vincent Ségal in the album Musique de Nuit, while in 2019 he published his latest work Sissoko & Sissoko, a collection of duets with the musician Baba Sissoko.

This album contains no booklet.