A CV that includes head of composition at Birmingham Conservatoire and also co-director of the iconoclastic ensemble Nozferatu means that Joe Cutler (40 this year) is well placed to confront today’s aesthetic contradictions. Thus Bartlebooth (2004) for clarinet trio and Archie (2005) for piano trio intercut material that debunks their “classical” formations as surely as it respects them. The piano pieces separate these out – Buckley’s Hot Licks (2001) with its Nancarrow-like overkill, and Clavinova Music (2005) with its Ligeti-like poise and lucidity. The two larger instrumental works place this disparity in sharpest relief: despite its antecedents in Dutch minimalism, Sal’s Sax (1996) has a capriciousness that is worlds away from the dreary noise so often “inspired” by Andriessen, while Music for Cello and Strings (2005) fuses dense polyphony and luminous harmony with an ingenuity that is never supinely postmodern. In Praise of Dreams (2004) is four settings of Wislawa Szymborska that evince a resourceful interplay of words and music to make the most arresting English song-cycle for years.

Performances are as persuasive as one would expect from such artists as Sarah Leonard, Stephen Gutman and the Fidelio Trio; nor does the sound disappoint. Tracks 7 and 8 are reversed on the track-listing and Peter Burt’s engaging essay includes one glaring error (think “trios”), while his eulogy to Neasden needs to be taken advisedly. This is still an essential purchase: Cutler may not make contemporary music loveable again, but he does make it unignorable and that is what really matters.