Percussionist Justin Peake is behind these two albums of adventurous music—sound sculptures, as he refers to them, and the term is appropriate here. The metaphor often feels needlessly artsy and forced, but Peake’s projects are best understood in terms of surfaces and how they interact with each other and the world around them. The silent spaces he leaves often allow the sound of the room to become part of the composition.

Touch is the more immediate and conventional of the two projects. The collaboration with Frank Gratkowski (horns) and Dan Oestreicher (saxes and analog synthesizer) presents electronically generated and manipulated sounds moving at a startlingly unhurried, undramatic pace. There are moments when Gratkowski tests his baritone sax to see what sort of unplanned sounds he can coax out of it, but there are no bent notes that sweep from low squonk to high squeal. Only the minute-and-a-half “Four” chirps and sputters like radio stations trying to be heard as someone rapidly rolls up the dial. Instead, Peake’s work focuses on textures, presenting sections of music during which one sound dominates before moving on to a section designed to contrast or complement the passage that went before. As such, Touch is ensemble creation at its most disciplined, even if you rarely get a sense of ensemble interaction.

Submerge takes his affection for quiet to the extreme, with a work so discreet that it borders on ambient, something that’s clearly a fascination. Changes come more gently and though it’s tempting to say “organically,” that’s not quite the right word when the sounds are this processed. Only the surging ninth track demands your attention, and it might only do so when compared to pieces constructed out of overtones or patient sheets of mechanized sound. There’s less of the tension on Submerge that accompanies Touch’s interaction between electronic and natural sounds because Peake and Boudreaux’s compositions are dominated by keyboards. It’s all cool, distant and very smart.