** 1/2 “Angels, Voices From Eternity.” Joel Cohen and Tod Machover. Boston Camerata. (Erato)

Late in the 20th century, early music’s appeal seems to grow evermore magnetic, perhaps because we all yearn for the purity of pre-modern music. Attempts to bridge the early with the late in music can be dangerous, but the effort yields better results than expected on this disc, assembled by conceptualist and arranger Joel Cohen, leading the refined vocal resources of the Boston Camerata in collaboration with electronic/computer music specialist Tod Machover. On this concept album, the propitious theme is otherworldly beings--the good, the bad and the guardian--as they have been considered in Gregorian chants, Medieval polyphonic tunes and Shaker hymns.

Machover’s electronic treatments are generally subtle, supplying warm beds of digitally rendered instrumental sound beneath the voices, aiming at an expressed desire to “unite seemingly unrelated musical materials.” Ironically, the most identifiably electronic pieces are the clamorous sample pastiche of “The Hosts of Hell” and Machover’s original composition “Angel of Death,” which pits a cello and a brief vocal chant against a moody backdrop of computerized chords. The ominous tone of the track is quickly refreshed, though, by the section called “The Consoling Angel” and the hopeful Shaker hymn “Trumpet of Salvation.” And so the album goes, leaping ambitiously across history and religious traditions, held together by a common motif and a desire to make music celebrating old notes with old and new tools.

*

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