Hal Parfitt-Murray & Nikolaj Busk - Music from the Edge of the World

The second album from this pair of multi-instrumentalists is a soundtrack to a fairy story – or a concept album, if you’re of a certain age. It certainly builds on their debut (which brought them several awards in Denmark, where both live), covering a lot of musical territory (from Maghrebi to Sibelius and Leon Rosselson, as well as plenty of originals) while still managing to sound cohesive and with that slight touch of alien magic, especially on the rather woozy Competitive Dance. Without doubt it’s a folk album; a listen to The Snows They Melt The Soonest dispels any doubts on that score, with an excellent unaccompanied Parfitt-Murray vocal, and he’s also adept on all things bowed or plucked, while Busk, who’s also part of Trio Mio, adds all manner of keyboards. There’s experimentation here, and sometimes the unexpected, like the inclusion of Wa Habibi or Music For Looking Over The Edge, which sounds like a CD player stuck on repeat but turns out to be a clever trick of Philip Glass-style minimalism (although it might have most people clicking fast forward), before the cabaret-circus feel of The National Anthem. This really is a journey, one that goes through some strange places, a few wild, a few quite surreal, but the ride is more than worth it.