The road towards recognition has been a somewhat slow and circuitous one for Gregory T Glancey. Indeed, one of the compositions on this disc dates to the late 1990s. This album promises to change all that, extending Glancey’s reach beyond the American new music college and conservatoire scene to a much wider audience.

‘Ashes to Impulse’ takes its inspiration from Ezekiel chapter 37, described by the composer in the accompanying online notes as the ‘supernatural resurrection from lifeless ashes to radiant impulse’. This powerful image is transformed into a nightmarish vision in From the Four Winds for ensemble with soprano. Ominous low-lying pedal tones on percussion appear alongside twisting piano and woodwind lines and ghostly Sprechstimme, evoking a starkly desolate landscape that operates on both physical and psychological levels.

From the Four Winds contains several stylistic gestures – ‘Glancey-isms’, for want of a better term – that are also heard in several other pieces. Openings often begin in subdued and understated but nevertheless eye-catching fashion, revolving around a single pitch (or set of pitches) – as if presented from a series of different angles or viewpoints – before eventually culminating in a series of dramatic (and sometimes chaotic) moments.

Along with Glancey’s treatment of texture and timbre, this suggests the influence of spectral music. It’s one approach among many, however, and the mood can change in an instant. This can be heard in Under the Shattered Moon for mixed chamber ensemble, where a microtonally infused flute melody at the beginning gives way to lyrical, neo-Romantic passages. If Under the Shattered Moon occasionally suggests more consonant-sounding Elliott Carter, Elegy for Parrhesia for piano resembles more dissonant-sounding Ravel. Glancey’s background in film music is also evident in some of these stylistic touches, although pinpointing the origins of these many sources can be tricky as they have become so enmeshed in the composer’s own distinctive style.

With standout performances by Junghwa Lee in Elegy for Parrhesia, Duo Zonda in Caprice for two flutes and the excellent Nemø Ensemble in From the Four Winds, ‘Ashes to Impulse’ offers as comprehensive an introduction to this composer’s vivid chamber idiom as one might hope to expect in 75 minutes. Well worth exploring.