Although known first and foremost as a significant modern-day jazz pianist, Vijay Iyer is a composer of note who has written for the strings and horns of the International Contemporary Ensemble (on the soundtrack of 2014‘s Radhe, Radhe, Rites Of Holi).

This new work for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project is another step into the contemporary classical world that is taken with appealing assurance. Although fully scored, the material, in its stirringly inventive use of rhythm, none more so than the rising momentum of tracks such as ‘Asunder IV:Lush’, is an interesting reminder of the longstanding relationship between composed and improvised music or creative affinities between Ellington and Stravinsky or Reich and Coltrane. The richness of the brass, sometimes deployed with a Copland-like sense of grandeur, is particularly striking but the ultimate achievement is the convincing evocation of the title, a sense of peril if not dread that largely defines our times. Sound for thought and feeling.