The louring drones at the start of John Palmer's Koan are deceptive. Like somnolent tigers in the zoo, a bad tempered cello prowls around sullen viola, cor anglais snarls at the flutes. But it turns out that the natural mood of Koan is high tension expressed in violent action. Four minutes in, shakuhachi soloist Teruhisa Fukuda is fighting his way through a dense, demanding solo passage with impressive virtuosity. Like Alice's White Rabbit, Fukuda hasn't a second to lose. Later the eight piece chamber ensemble returns, weaving thickets of woodwind around the soloist. Alto flute borrows classical shakuhachi techniques in gusts of breath and sirling harmonics. Piano and percussion do battle like a good old fashioned free improvisation night.
Tokyo's ComeT Ensemble emerge from this hectic 24 minutes melee with considerable credit. But it's strange that an instrument like the shakuhachi, which presumably attracts composers like John Palmer because of certain non-Western qualities - its relation to empty space, its poise - should then be subjected to pushy post-serialism, the most Western and hyperactive of modernist idioms. The incongruous effect is like watching a samurai warrior rushing to enter a crowded subway carriage.
Palmer is a British composer currently based in Germany, with a professorship in Stuttgart. Well established in the world of contemporary composition, he was a friend of John Cage, and is currently drawn to Japanese Buddhism and culture. On the second piece, Still, the oriental references are more oblique. Das Neue KammerTrio present the dark breathiness of bass flute, viola like a keening voice, and deadened, biwa-like notes from 12 string guitar. The players are keenly aware of the space and silence around their meditative phrases. The writing is still firm and disciplined, but this piece is far more beautiful than the scrum of Koan. Palmer's vision is most clearly realised in the final piece Satori, a ten minutes composition for solo harpsichord, performed by Palmer himself. The harpsichord is a stiff, unforgiving machine - no note-bending or half-hholing here - but Palmer's incisive, ringing phrases have the ascetic purity of a martial art. Strokes and gestures cut through the air with such a lack of hurry that it seems time has been abolished.

Clive Bell, The Wire, November 2003