Thursday, 6 December 2018

John Falsetto & Mohamed Sarrar - Sounds of Refuge

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 144, January/February 2019.

John Falsetto & Mohamed Sarrar
Sounds of Refuge
Good Chance (33 mins)

John Falsetto and Mohamed Sarrar met as fellow actors in the award-winning play The Jungle. The play tells the stories and journeys of the residents of the Calais refugee camp, and Sounds of Refuge is no different. The album evolved from informal dressing room jams, but it soon took on a life of its own that took it all the way to Abbey Road Studios.

Falsetto and Sarrar are both refugees themselves, from Zimbabwe and Sudan respectively, and Sarrar lived for a time in the Calais Jungle: there is no doubt that these songs come from the heart. Falsetto’s mbira lays the foundation of the album, building layers of bright and clear tones for his and Sarrar’s vocals to lie upon. The sound is rounded off by Sarrar’s djembe and darbuka drums, piano from Duncan Webb and occasional spoken word from Syrian actor Ammar Haj Ahmed.

The result is strongest when the Zimbabwean and Arabic styles come together, especially with Sarrar’s singing, but that doesn’t happen often enough. Instead, most of the album tends towards a very gentle, middle-of-the-road feel, with little to surprise or stand out. The project represented here is definitely interesting and worthy of attention, but the music is lacking in adventure.