Professor of Music at Columbia University and a pioneer of interactive computer music, George Lewis made news recently with his well-considered VAN article ‘New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps’, which resonated in the broader post-BLM environment. ‘There is no reason why major music institutions that tout themselves as international should continue to present all-white programs’, he noted.

The psychedelic ‘Recombinant Trilogy’ comprises three recent works for solo instrument and electronics. Each explores ways in which Max electronics can exaggerate or transform the solo instrument. Works are structured as plateaus of interaction between instrument and electronics. This formal approach – sequential rather than developmental – ensures that there’s always something unforeseen around the corner, and that as listeners we stay engaged. A highlight is the virtuoso performance by Claire Chase, Seth Parker Woods and Dana Jessen, which rewards repeated listens.

Emergent for flute and electronics opens with Chase playing repeated high notes; soon the sounds begin multiplying, swirling, dipping and diving. We’re not sure of what’s the original flute and what its electronic copies, but we can pleasure in the sound. Disorientation is intentional, a pretext for adventures into new sound zones. Elsewhere there’s more straightforward contrapuntal dialogue between actual and virtual, and elements of dialogue, too, with tradition (echoes of Varèse). More strident, Not Alone for cello and electronics is dedicated to cellist Abdul Wadud of the Black Artists Group of St Louis. Its opening features long, weaving atonal lines high up the cello’s neck which eventually become a cascade, before transforming into staccato harmonics and col legno.

Seismologic for bassoon and electronics in places reminds me of the Boulez of Dialogue de l’ombre double, but more generous. Multiphonic tremolandos and fast up-and-down chromatic runs, repeated à la John Coltrane, are joined by ghostly pitch-shifted doppelgängers; soon, the doppelgängers are so altered that they don’t resemble the bassoon at all but rather babbling animal voices. Lewis has a keen sense for pacing, and contrast always arrives at the right moment.