On June 5 Stone Flowers, a group of refugee torture survivors, will release album Ngunda in partnership with the Music Action International and Freedom From Torture organisations. The group was first brought together as a response to evidence of the use of music as a method of torture in Guantanamo Bay and other military detention camps. In the summer of 2014, Stone Flowers successfully ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise over £9000 to record an album influenced by their various musical backgrounds and personal experiences and now Ngunda is seeing a release.
A statement circulated by Music Action International says that “through Stone Flowers, the survivors have been empowered to write and perform their own songs and take ownership of the creative process, with all participants contributing musical ideas, lyrics and melodies, leading the songs and playing instruments. Songs are performed in Tamil, Farsi, Kikongo, Lingala, Arabic, French and English. The album will also be launched this Friday at the Amnesty International HQ in London. You can watch a short film about Stone Flowers by BBC director James Sandy below and the album will be available to purchase, via Music Action International, here from Friday. Tickets for the launch event, where the group’s members will participate in a Q&A panel after a live performance, at Amnesty International’s HQ are available here.
