‘Between Breath’, the New Focus label’s fourth release devoted to music by Scott Wollschleger, contains four premieres written over a period of seven years, and, according to the composer, ‘woven together here as a complete work’. Wollschleger describes the project as the culmination of an intense collaborative process with the commissioning artists who are featured on the album. One immediately gleans this by perusing the scores. In Between Breath, for example, trombonist William Lang provides a detailed preface explaining his extended performance techniques of ‘overpressure’, ‘split tones’ and ‘dirty split tones’, which Wollschleger incorporates into the notated part with surgical precision. Similar attention to detail applies to the various piano preparations and the harmonics that ensue; the final section requires nothing less than two small battery-operated vibrators wrapped in Blu-Tack. By contrast, Violain (written for and performed by violinist Maya Bennardo and viola player Hannah Levinson) offers the performers ad lib opportunities at certain junctures, yet these, too, are subject to painstaking directives on the composer’s part.

So what does the music sound like? Violain’s first part begins with rapid flautando passages that quickly give way to slow-moving muted lines spiced with pizzicato punctuations. These gestures walk a thin line between slow and static, perhaps intentionally slow. However, the piece’s second part proves far more varied and rhythmically engaging.

Happily, the elaborate notated blueprints laying out Between Breath’s extended techniques translate into fascinating sonorities, especially where the trombone’s gritty low-register long tones support harp-like plucked single notes from inside the piano, sometimes giving the impression of an electronic soundtrack. For all the ingenious sound design, the fleeting moments when Anne Rainwater goes into ‘unprepared’ piano mode to play sparse single notes and chords move me the most.

I like the subtle alternations and interactions between voice and pitchpipe throughout Anyway, where threads go, it all goes well. Soprano Lucy Dhegrae is largely limited to fragmented phrases within a constricted range of notes (Morton Feldman’s Three Voices somehow comes to mind), but her impeccable intonation and word-colouring more than compensate, not to mention Nathaniel LaNasa’s supple handling of the piano part.

Finally, Secret Machine No 7 for violin solo serves up a boundless portfolio of extended techniques, sophisticated harmonics, threadbare double-stops, wispy glissandos and simultaneous arco/pizzicato passages. Frankly the piece goes on twice as long as necessary for what it has to express. On the other hand, Miranda Cuckson’s astonishing technique, pinpoint control and impeccable intonation enable her to convey a convincing sense of narrative and continuity; no wonder she’s been a new-music violinist of choice for decades. Indeed, all the performances on this album define world-class, and so does the engineering