Kaija Saariaho is one of the most impressive practitioners of electro­acoustic music around – as this disc demonstrates. Each work here is scored for a live musician and electronics‚ and each inhabits a quite different sound world. Each is a response to a particular voice or instrument‚ even to a particular singer or player. Lonh‚ for example – a setting of a beautiful poem in the Occitan or medieval Provençal language – was written for Dawn Upshaw‚ and just as the quasi­modal vocal lines fit her voice and musical character like a glove‚ so the taped sounds (which include voices‚ among them her own and what I take to be Saariaho’s) ‘accompany’ her voice most sympathetically. Près is filled with much bolder‚ more jagged gestures‚ even violent assaults and sepulchral poundings which will test the lower frequency response of your loudspeakers‚ but they are all‚ including those on tape‚ explorations and expansions of what the cello – and Anssi Karttunen – can do rather well. NoaNoa (the title refers to a picture by Gauguin) explores the affinities between the flute and the act of breathing and of speech‚ and between consonants and the percussive sounds available from the flute. Six Japanese Gardens‚ however‚ presents another aspect of Saariaho’s work‚ since here the formality and precision of the gardens that so impressed her are reflected in formal and ritualised music‚ recalling Japanese temple and theatre music in its use of bells‚ drums and (on tape) chanting voices. Throughout all four works Saariaho’s imagining of sounds is precise‚ lucid and alluring. The accompanying CD­ROM is‚ I hope‚ a taste of things to come. It includes about 15 hours of beautifully designed information and entertainment‚ from a sort of self­portrait of Saariaho‚ via analyses of her work and reactions to it from performers‚ to an entrancing musical game in which you can ‘compose’ a piece for flute and cello from pre­recorded musical fragments‚ either with guidance from Saariaho or quite freely – and then get Camilla Hoitenga and Anssi Karttunen to play it for you.