Another classy release from Another Timbre, which has drifted away from improvisation towards composition – witness their bestselling box ‘Wandelweiser und so weiter’ - while often still featuring the same musicians. ‘Goldsmiths’ offers a nice balance of both music-making methods: a trio of compositions plus a gorgeous 20 minute improve by the whole group.

Fans of odd titles get a treat from Sarah Hughes: ‘A Reward Is Given For The Best Infra-Mammary Fold No4’ sounds like a quote from a junior doctors’ rag mag. Rather than faintly covering the space, like some of Antoine Beuger’s music, Hughes’s piece occupies it fully, as instruments move from melodic events to hovering chords that build in intensity. John Tilbury’s piano adds rich colour to the strings (Angharad Davies and Lina Lapelyte on violins, Michael Duch on bass). Meanwhile John Lely’s electronics hang a backdrop and Rhodri Davies supplies subtle magic of the what-the-heck-is-he-doing kind,

Lely co-runs the London concert series Music We’d Like To Hear. His ‘First Page for Five’ is a systematic progression of staggered string and melodica chords. It’s a conceptually clear way of writing that connects with the English experimental tradition embodied by Michael Parsons. Beauty is achieved by pitting the slightly inhuman system of the composing against the very human and fragile performance.

Tilbury returns for the flatly titled ‘Goldsmiths Improvisation’, which is maybe the disc’s highpoint. Finally Jürg Frey’s ‘Circular Music No.6’ is a journey through a super-delicate undergrowth of noises. The Swiss composer is an old Wandelweiser hand, and a decade ago his ‘Unhörbare Zeit’ was a cauldron of restraint for string quartet and percussion. The current piece is a deceptively simple mix of circular scraping motions, plus Lapelyte’s beautifully performed, hardly there vocalisation. Quiet but headspinning.”

Clive Bell, The Wire