This fascinating and beautiful new release, a collaboration between contralto Karen Clark and the early-music ensemble Galax Quartet, boasts an endless dialogue between tradition and innovation, past and present. It"s mesmerizing. The music, by four composers, sets poems by Gary Snyder that are themselves translations and adaptations of the eighth century Chinese poet Han Shan, so the texts have an unplaceable timelessness about them. Matching that quality is the sound of the Galax Quartet - a traditional string quartet made up of historic, gut-stringed instruments - and Clark"s majestic, throaty singing, with hints of modernist extravagance and medieval troubadours. The songs that exploit this duality most tellingly are by Roy Whelden, a viola da gamba virtuoso and member of the quartet, whose music weds the gestures of Baroque string playing to the casual elegance of a modern pop song. Fred Frith"s contributions are also pop tinged but with a harder, rock-oriented edge. Composers Robert Morris and W.A. Mathieu don"t quite dodge the shapelessness of contemporary vocal writing, but Mathieu"s songs display a catchy bravado that is irresistible.