No information is provided about composer Hywel Davies anywhere on this release containing 17 of his short pieces. That’s just as well, because it forces one to judge the music purely on its own merits, and there’s much to enjoy. The opening salvo, Descent for string quartet, consists of an ascending four-chord phrase that repeats over and over again yet with subtle changes in harmony and voice leading. Towards the end, the phrase ascends into a higher register. That’s a lot of ascending for a piece called Descent! Another quartet piece, End Canon, weaves and builds canonic voices into a lulling climax. Beautifully drawn-out sonorities full of tension and release characterise Cold in the Earth, a work with four cellos. Of the three violin/cello Duos, No 6 stands out for its ingratiating, asymmetrical unison lines. Suggestions of Michael Nyman and Arvo Pärt inform a group of short piano pieces, while the two-and-a-half-minute Sonatas in F wouldn’t be out of place in a folio of Virgil Thomson portraits. The performances by Adam Caird are excellent, though drily recorded.

Glockenspiel player Martin Pyne joins Caird for Bow Flurry, a very stark and fragile duet whose eight-minute duration seems a tad long. Not so, however, for a six-minute solo flute composition, Apostrophe, which is followed by Nocturne, a duet for alto and bass flutes consisting of short repeated gestures surrounded by silences. The final selection proves the disc’s only true dud. Apus Apus Part 2 for flute ensemble is a collection of soft, meandering overtones and sound effects that convey little shape or form. In sum, a well-varied calling card introducing a composer from whom I hope to hear more.