Many compelling new releases have come through the Time Out office over the last few weeks. Although we may not have space to review everything that tickles our fancy, I’m mentioning a few recordings well I’m glad I’ve stumbled upon.

Quartet Solo Series, the first release by the New York-based label Striking Mechanism, which specializes in improvised and experimental music, is a startling journey in sound. The CD features four pieces by four separate composers: Marina Peterson, Jonathan Chen, Phillip Schulze and Andrew Raffo Dewer. The highly experimental, minimalist works may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Chen Peterson’s cello, which sounds like a boiling kettle being pushed around on dry ice, is oddly soothing.

On the flipside of this rhythmic looseness is Alarm Will Sound, with the outstanding a/rhythmia (Nonesuch). Here, Herculean rhythms combine with startling energy and mathematical precision in a successful attempt to jolt the listener out of their comfort zone. Featuring 14 pieces written by composers as diverse as György Ligeti, Autechre, Conlon Nancarrow and Benedict Mason, Alarm Will Sound’s interpretations are engrossing abstractions that shiver with tension before bolting in unexpected directions, skipping across the beats with seemingly inexhaustible vigor.

Finally, Hawaii-based composer John A. Carollo’s timely Transcendence in the Age of War (Navona) is a 70-minute collection of works written over the last decade and is worth checking out for the opening track, “Desiderio for String Orchestra” alone. Scored for violins, violas, cellos and contrabass and performed by the Moravian String Orchestra, it’s a stingingly poignant piece that, in the words of Carollo, “expresses remoteness of desire, its discovery and the ultimate satisfaction of experiencing human appetites.”