Where is Home is the debut album of Abel Selaocoe, a prizewinning cellist-singer-composer from South Africa. He is now based in Manchester, UK, where he attended the Royal Northern College of Music. His distinctive way of making music transcends conventional genres: interweaving a diversity of personal and cultural experiences, it combines singing and body percussion with different methods of drawing sound from the cello.

“As its title suggests, the album explores the idea of seeking refuge,” says Abel Selaocoe, “not in the stigmatised sense of the word associated with fleeing, but as a place that grounds us and empowers us. Shelter is a universal human need, yet we search for home in different ways. ‘Home’ can mean so many things beyond the architectural or geographical space: it can be a spiritual place; it can be people; it can be solitude; it can be a routine. It can also be something you find along your travels. In all these senses of the word I've learned to find my different homes through the cello.”

Where is Home sets Abel’s own compositions and improvisations beside works by two 18th century composers: Johann Sebastian Bach and the vastly lesser-known Giovanni Benedetto Platti. Appearing with Abel on the album are musicians from a variety of cultural and stylistic backgrounds. Among them is Yo-Yo Ma, one of his inspirations as a cellist.