Take a wild sonic ride on the sounds of the spike fiddle with Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor.

Kalhor is known for his exceptional skills in playing the kamancheh (aka spike fiddle), a traditional Persian instrument. He describes playing the kamancheh as akin to “riding a wild horse” due to the instrument’s challenging nature.

The Atlantic Ocean separates Cuba and Senegal, the respective birthplaces of piano virtuoso Omar Sosa and kora master Seckou Keita, a distance diminished by their shared ancestral connection to Africa.

Recorded during lockdown and released in October 2021, Sosa and Keita’s second album SUBA is a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, a visceral reiteration of humanity’s perennial prayer for peace and unity. Joining Omar and Seckou in the studio and for live performances is the inimitable Venezuelan artist Gustavo Ovalles.

Maryna Krut (pronounced “kroot”) is a Ukrainian singer and virtuoso of the bandura, a stringed instrument unique to Ukraine that looks and sounds like a hybrid of lute and harp. At 28, Maryna Krut is an assured performing artist; her compelling, soulful performances evoke both folk traditions and modern sensibilities, with pop and jazz flourishes. A Eurovision finalist, she often represents Ukraine at official events and performs for soldiers in the current war zone, and she has appeared at the Edinburgh International Culture Summit, Andalucia Big Festival, Montreal Ukrainian Festival, and on other international stages.

A meeting between instruments, ready to break from tradition.

Malian virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko, widely considered to be one of the greatest touring kora players, joins Derek Gripper, South Africa’s leading guitarist, whose love of the kora set him transcribing and recording some of its greatest works, to change the face of classical guitar and give the instrument its very first African repertoire.