Thiefs (sic) is led by the New York avant-jazz bassist Keith Witty and in-demand French saxophonist Christophe Panzini, who's been heavily involved with French hip hop as well as jazz. The band could be likened to the protagonists from the 1990s French cult movie La Haine in that it's made up of second-generation immigrants and, like that film, concerned with issues of identity and migration. Thiefs tackle these currently pertinent socio-political topics with a pretty compelling, inventively fractured yet cohesive mix of elements from Parisian street rap to post-alt. rock to downtown NYC jazz. Releasing their acclaimed debut in 2013, the pair join forces here with poets, spoken word and rap artists including the Parisian-based Mike Ladd, the Parisian-Rwandan rapper Gaël Faye and US resident Guillermo E. Brown, best known as a drummer in the David S Ware quartet. Ladd made the album In What Language?with Vijay Iyer in 2004, and it's something of a precursor to Graft, with its leftfield mix of hip hop and jazz, and fears of displacement following post-9-11. Contra to the alarming rise of nationalism, Thiefs see the positive in alternative identities involving endless transformations. Certainly, if things were decided musically, they'd win that battle.