Bryce Dessner confessed to having been shocked by the precision and energy of Ensemble Resonanz’s performances when he first heard them. However, the composer’s punchy post-minimalist style is in many ways ideally suited to this group’s uncompromising visceral power.

In the hands of Ensemble Resonanz, the two earliest works featured here – Aheym (2009) and Tenebre (2010) – become supercharged manifestations of the original versions for string quartet. Originally written for and recorded by the Kronos Quartet (Anti, 2013), Aheym’s opening pounding 13-note riff is given the full heavy-metal treatment by Resonanz, downbows applied with nerves of steel. The work’s edgy intensity is maintained throughout, eventually giving rise to a series of shuddering explosions at the end.

More subtle textural twists and turns are heard in Tenebre, trembling sul ponticello tremolandos whispering above a solemnly sustained melody in cellos and basses. Dessner’s fondness for textural build-ups is most evident here, and the addition of a tape part in the final section, featuring increasingly elaborate vocal patterns layered alongside divided strings, gives the music a rare rich opulence. A hovering unison heard at the end of Lachrimae (2012) provides further evidence of Dessner’s penchant for the unpredictable and unexpected.

Indeed, in between this piece and the most recent on the disc, Skrik Trio (2017), one imagines the composer to have experienced something of an avant-garde epiphany. Bartók-style pizzicatos pop and fizz against sharp rhythmic shards, sporadically punctuated with moments of flashing brilliance, often played in unison. Taut modular musical segments combined with energetic blocks of sound – qualities that once featured heavily in Dessner’s music – are now replaced with more elongated passages: paragraphs rather than pithy headlines, imparting a nervous narrative quality. With everything from Monteverdi to punk rock and minimalism providing grist to Dessner’s creative mill, it will be interesting to see what he comes up with next.