Album: Andrew Keeling, Unquiet Earth (Spaceward)

Andrew Keeling's diverse career has previously led to work with Evelyn Glennie, The Hilliard Quartet and King Crimson, and in the chamber works on Unquiet Earth he exhibits a similar straddling of influences.

His string quartet piece "Present" isn't so much anti-contemporary classical in style so much as reinforcing pre-modernist forms with the buttresses of minimalism – the latter also notably present in the hypnotic waves of "You Cut the String", written for Steve Bingham's electric violin. But throughout, there's an intimate, discursive quality to the way Keeling manipulates his chosen compositional elements, the urgent rhythmic motifs and triadic tone structures, particularly in the more reflective passages of "Unquiet Earth".

Download: You Cut the String; Present; Unquiet Earth