Richard Cameron-Wolfe is probably best known for his micro-operas – powerful pocket-size, single-movement pieces for solo, duet or small ensemble combinations that explore musical, cognitive and dramatic dissonances through the lens of the composer’s hard-hitting atonal and microtonal style.

‘Passionate Geometries’ is bookended by two of these micro-operas. The first, Heretic, revolves around a dysfunctional dialogue between solo guitar and the performer’s own voice (both elements impressively coordinated on this recording by Marc Wolf), where vocal and instrumental fragments combine to generate wildly contrasting moods and gestures – from relaxed and friendly to fractious, frenzied and chaotic. Think Elliott Carter on Quaaludes to get a general sense of the music’s impact.

The title-track, for soprano, flute, guitar and cello, offers a more muted and withdrawn take on Cameron-Wolfe’s micro-operatic aesthetic. Even when writing for ensemble, however, Cameron-Wolfe builds his material around solo statements and duet combinations. The music is often at its most effective when the soloist becomes entangled in a kind of schizophrenic soliloquy with itself (as happens in Heretic) or where subject and object are pitted against one another.

A sinister and uneasy undertow lurks beneath the surface of Time Refracted for cello and piano – its title reflected in ticking clock-like oscillations and uneasy, shifting patterns – while echoes of Wagner’s Tristan chord hover stubbornly, like a dark cloud, over the musical landscape of O minstrel for soprano and guitar.

Cameron-Wolfe’s music is perhaps less effective when the focus is on group dynamics rather than dramatic conflict. Such moments are encountered in the microtonal Mirage d’esprit and fragmentary Telesthesia, for guitar and cello quartets respectively, where sonic weirdness takes precedence over substance and content. Nevertheless, with eye-catching contributions from soprano Stephanie Lamprea in O minstrel, flautist Roberta Michel in Kyrie(Mantra)IV, saxophonist Geoff Landman in Lonesome Dove: A True Story (another Cameron-Wolfe micro-opera) and the ever-present Dan Lippel on guitar, ‘Passionate Geometries’ provides a timely overview of the chamber output of this under-the-radar composer, forming an excellent companion album to ‘An Inventory of Damaged Goods’, issued on the Furious Artisans label in 2018.