Elisaveta Blumina, John Feeley, Pavlos Kanellakis, Hilliard Ensemble, EQ EnsembleLouth Contemporary Music Society LCMS1301 ****

There are piano pieces by Fazil Say, Alan Hovhaness and Siobhán Cleary, vocal pieces by Vache Sharafyan, works for string ensemble by Rabih Abou Khalil and John Surman, and a two-guitar work by Say. Louth Contemporary Music Society's new CD, with an image of Gurdjieff on the cover is as adventurous as ever, and comes without notes to explain the rationale of the musical choices. The music, recorded with close- focused, grainy immediacy, is full of oriental inflections, and the one piece without a descriptive title, Cleary's Chaconne, the first Irish piece espoused on disc by the Society, with its sometimes disturbed ruminations, somehow fits into the overall atmosphere. url.ie/gvbnMICHAEL DERVAN