Following releases on Signum, the London Sinfonietta continues its in-house label with a disc of recent works – five of them having emerged through the Writing the Future scheme. Of the three solo pieces, Edmund Finnis’s provides a bracing study for viola in natural harmonics, while Tim Hodgkinson contrasts the proportions of movement with those of perception in his visceral workout for horn, and Duncan MacLeod focuses on the dissonance emanating from non-equal tuning via the cumulative interplay between double bass and electronics. Of the two ensemble pieces, Isambard Khroustaliov (Sam Britton) has embodied Derrida’s concept of ‘différance’ in music of gradual crescendos and chord colours, while Shiva Feshareki considers growing self-awareness in music whose grinding ostinatos find eventual release through a keen expressive poise.

Which leaves the Sinfonietta commission from Martin Suckling. Setting five texts by the Scottish poet Don Paterson, Candlebird is a song-cycle whose wide range of moods is posited in the contrast between a vocal line of notable restraint and ensemble writing that often threatens to take over the foreground: until, that is, the final song with its sense of an emotional ‘coming together’ in music of luminous repose. A fine culmination to an absorbing work, eloquently sung by Leigh Melrose and with Nicholas Collon ensuring clarity in even the most intricate textures. The sound has a not obtrusive live ambience and there are succinct notes on each piece and composer – but the latter’s grey typeface makes reading more of a trial than it need be.