Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The untimely death of Toumani Diabaté last summer makes his sometime collaborator (on the groundbreaking album New Ancient Strings) Ballaké Sissoko undisputedly Mali’s finest living kora player. Diabaté had fallen largely silent in the years before he died, apart from a glorious one-take collaborative record with the Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor. Sissoko has in the meantime been releasing a series of albums in a wide range of formats: separate collaborations with the cellist Vincent Ségal, the flautist Nicole Mitchell and the guitarist Derek Gripper; accompanied by Moroccan oud and Malagasy valiha in the trio 3MA; and several solo albums of unaccompanied kora.His 2021 album Djourou featured a variety of guests including Gambian multi-instrumentalist Sona Jobarteh, Malian singer-songwriter Salif Keita and French singer Camille. It also featured the British-Italian singer Piers Faccini, a fellow staple at the French label No Format!. The two have played together on and off over the years, but Our Calling is their first full album as a duo.Its central theme is migration — of seeds, birds and people. On “I Wanted To Belong” Sissoko whips up the kora like a fresh offshore breeze as Faccini sings about wanting to feel as if winds sailing against a cliff were “calling out a home / South the way they’re blown”. There is a desert sway to “Mournful Moon”, with kora, guitar and Malik Ziad’s guembri lurching up against each other. “Mournful moon,” sings Facccini with a hint of blues, “with her silver rays / stealing time / to burn the day.” Right in the middle, Sissoko breaks free from the song’s repetitive patterns to unleash a silvered solo.At the end of “Go Where Your Eyes”, guitar arabesques interlocking with fast, sweet kora runs slow down into contemplative space. “Drawing shadows ’till they’re done,” Faccini sings, stretching that last word out into a set of wordless phrases that echo like a call to prayer.★★★★☆‘Our Calling’ is released by No Format!
