France's publically funded, flagship jazz orchestra has explored the works of Robert Wyatt, Astor Piazzolla and collaborated with John Hollenbeck among others. The most recent Europa series, devised by the current director Olivier Benoit, is a sonic travelogue through major cities that's taken in Paris, Berlin, Rome, and ends here with a sonic portrait of Oslo. Along the way Benoit's music draws from elements of contemporary Nordic jazz from ascetic baroque-jazz and Gil-Miles influenced arrangements, and alt-rock flavours through to ambient electric prog, jazztronica and eerily abstract industrial soundscapes. But central to the recording is the Oslo-based writer/poet Hans Petter Blad's texts, with their haunting personal imagery, sung and spoken by the Italian actress/vocalist Maria Laura Baccarini. The writing for voice is occasionally reminiscent of Björk's with the lyrics lending the whole a suite-like narrative. It's a seductively musical combination.