Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Crossing Borders is at times best approached without words, the sense of anxiety that can be swept aside by just listening without a verbal exchange hindering the process of acceptance and a guarantee of understanding with simple gestures and a flourish of music acting as a serenity to progress and further advancement.

To see beyond the self-imposed margins that bind us to the comfortable and the content is not a gift, it is a right of every person, a need to push the boundary of existence, to speak less but create more unblemished sound, and as the eight strong membership of Axum Folk Ensemble provide with proof intact and dynamic cool in the new E.P., Crossing Borders, so the need for the listener to expand their own horizons becomes imperative.

Recorded at Simpson Street Studios in Northumberland, Axum Folk Ensemble bring the five articulately audible tracks to life, and as Da Lounge Bar, Westmorland, The Gamekeeper’s Cottage, Ashokan Farewell, and Tamlin strike with passionate flexibility and the suppleness of fingers dedicated to weaving intricacy of a beautiful nature, so the listener knows they have been granted a peek, a detailed vision behind the curtain of folk music where the music is layered and has no need for explanation via words or verbal language; only the sound requires response, and to that it is almost sacrosanct.

To exemplify the very nature of the complete instrumental piece is to understand how much it is enhances the listener’s ability to register imagination, the lack of verbal dictation adding to the muscle of inspiration, moving to bring forth a vision of their own that matches the mood and elevates the drama at their command. Axum Folk Ensemble nourish this throughout the E.P.s running time and it is a pleasure to wade in the waters of creative fancy alongside their music.

A well-crafted release, the second extended play from the group and one that lifts the spirits enormously.

Ian D. Hall