Whether by scoring an episode of Wonder Showzen or writing a piece that involves teasing women’s hair onstage, Nico Muhly bucks the role of a proper composer every chance he gets. Yet like the would-be outsiders he runs with (Philip Glass, Björk, Antony Hegarty, Rufus Wainwright), the Chinatown dweller, now in his mid-twenties, has garnered a lifetime’s worth of praise. On Mothertongue, his second album, Muhly reminds us why he’s so warmly accepted in classical circles: His deep, literary understanding of modern society comes through in his music. Muhly deals with communication and its failings in three pieces, each touched by Glass-like repetitive patterns.

Valgeir Sigurdsson, Björk’s studio wizard, is Muhly’s coproducer, so it’s no wonder that the atmospheric textures and unintelligible soprano muttering in the titular piece might please fans of Sigur Rós and Amiina. Indie-rock enthusiasts could also warm to The Only Tune, and not just because it has audible vocals and tells a coherent, scary story. The first movement, “Two Sisters” (one kills the other), resembles a conventional song rendered in banjo plinking and exaggerated Appalachian-style singing. Even in this moment of pop dalliance, Muhly can’t resist adding streams of monotonous vocals. Those stray sounds are annoying, but that’s the idea: Muhly confirms in a press release that these “jittery, anxious repetitions…suggest the nauseating effects of international jet lag and airport stultification.” If the world around us isn’t entirely pretty, he seems to ask, then why should our music be?

Nico Muhly plays (Le) Poisson Rouge Aug 23.