I Dreamed an Island

Piers Faccini created a beautiful duo album, Songs of Time Lost, with cellist Vincent Segal in 2014. But the British singer-songwriter is more regularly a solo artist, and a prolific one too. Songs of Time Lost was beautiful in its understated elegance. On his own, Faccini's music is more direct, but this new album carries the same spirit of introspection and refined instrumental detail.

Faccini designed this album to be a reflection on the cultural pluralism of 12th-century Sicily, and more widely as a comment on immigration and modern intolerance. The sound-world he builds for this subject matter is fascinating: Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and African instruments (mandole, oud and gimbri) and historical European instruments (psaltery and viola d’amore), all used sparingly, alongside resonant electronic guitar and drums. The timelessness of the music is emphasised by songs that sound both new and extremely old (which are sung in French and Arabic as well as English), with Faccini's rather graceful singing being the icing on the cake.

If a couple of the tunes here amble a little (‘Beloved’ for example), I Dreamed An Island is nevertheless a feat of songwriting; Piers Faccini wrote almost all the songs on album. He is a truly original voice.