Wow. On this remarkable recording – both ambitiously grandiose and coolly contemporary – Ibrahim Maalouf and Oxmo Puccino join forces to unite jazz and rap in a trippy retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Jazz-rock combines with a full orchestra and a children's choir to give at once earthy (the groovy hip-hop rhythms) and ethereal (those massed children's voices) form to the Lewis Carroll literary classic. Mali-born rapper and wordsmith Puccino intones his lyrics with poetic precision so that it's hard not to hear Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson as an important predecessor recording; as both composer and arranger, Maalouf is able to blend the different sounds with an authority and imagination to rival Gainsbourg's too. You'll need to speak French to appreciate Puccino's achievement fully, although the beauty of his delivery transcends linguistic borders, especially on the delirious ‘Partie de croquet’. Likewise you don't have to be in possession of a BA in foreign languages to appreciate Franck Woeste's keyboard work, or the evocative picking of guitarist François Delporte.