Preview: Kefaya & Elaha Soroor @ The Glasshouse ICM

Kefaya & Elaha Soroor bring their boundary‑breaking global sound to The Glasshouse on Friday 18th September, celebrating the release of their new album Our Freedoms Must Be Won. Formed by London‑based musicians Giuliano Modarelli, Ali MacSween and Joost Hendrickx, Kefaya have built a reputation for politically charged, genre‑shifting work that draws from jazz, electronica, psychedelic rock and revolutionary music traditions. Their collaboration with Hazara singer and activist Elaha Soroor adds a powerful emotional core, weaving Afghan folk forms and stories of exile, resistance and survival into the group’s expansive, improvisation‑driven sound.

The collective’s previous releases — including Radio International and the award‑winning Songs of Our Mothers — established them as one of the UK’s most forward‑thinking musical projects, reimagining traditional songs and amplifying voices often pushed to the margins. Their new album pushes further still, leaning into synth rock, post‑punk textures and jazz psychedelia while maintaining the subtle folk influences that anchor their work. Themes of war, displacement and collective responsibility run throughout, carried by polyrhythms, immersive synthesisers and trance‑like grooves that feel both ancient and urgently contemporary.