Sébastien Tellier has never been one to shy away from huge concepts. Since launching his career in 2001 with an assist from his pals in the frothy French pop duo Air, he’s laden his albums with the weight of terms like Politics and Sexuality. Even when he’s taking a more personal tack, like on 2012’s My God Is Blue, he still supplies lofty backstories, and his new record, L’Aventura, is no different: the album is supposed to be a musical reimagining of his childhood, a fantasy inspired by the sights of sounds of Brazil rather than the reality of his French home.

Tellier likes to jump between genres with a dilettante’s flair—in his decade-plus of recording, he’s flitted between traditional chanson, lewd French touch, and completely orchestral composition, with varying degrees of success—so his dive into the rich world of Brazilian music should be taken with a grain of salt or two. To wit: in an interview with Noisey, he admitted that he tried to limit his interaction with Brazilian music before making the record as a means of preserving the childlike naiveté necessary for a genuine revision of his youth. Thankfully, he solicited some help realizing his vision: veteran French musicians Jean-Michel Jarre and Philippe Zdar (of house duo Cassius) participated in the album’s recording and mixing, and celebrated Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai contributed many of the album’s string and backing vocal arrangements. Verocai also helped to secure the collaboration of Brazilian jazz drummer Robertinho Silva, whose percussion can be heard throughout L’Aventura.

Tellier’s choice to trust experienced, highly skilled Brazilian session players with the fruits of his imagination is one of the best decisions of his career. L’Aventura sounds immaculate, verdant, and rich; strings swoop and fly in the background, cascading around Tellier’s thick baritone, while bass lines pop and rhythms dance with a surprising lightness. These are densely arranged, complicated songs, so buoyancy and deftness are unexpected and very welcome elements. That’s not to say that Tellier doesn’t occasionally go overboard; his liberal application of animal noises wears thin pretty quickly, and his vocal takes always tread the line between velvety smoothness and smarmy lecherousness. “Love”, flecked with jazzy flute and fluttering vocal tapestries, edges dangerously close to hypothetical Anchorman 3: Ron in Rio soundtrack territory, but for the most part L’Aventura avoids such overripe missteps.

When the album succeeds, its joy and precision transcend any language barriers that might exist; though the album is almost entirely sung in French, its sweeping arrangements and sunny melodies make it easy for non-Francophones to accompany Tellier on his journey through his hypothetical youth. “Sous Les Rayons du Soleil” (“Under the Sun’s Rays”) glides effortlessly, like a boat slicing through calm water; the dark, turbulent “Ricky L’adolescent” (“Ricky the Teenager”), which depicts Tellier meeting a druggy, grumpy 15-year-old version of himself, is a funhouse farce with stabbing strings and funky, percolating synth lines. Listeners who can’t interact directly with Tellier’s lyrics might have to dig a little to optimize their experience with L’Aventura, but it’s thrilling to hear him attempt to pull off his high-concept ideas solely through smart composition and musical skill.

The album’s most ambitious moment is also its most impenetrable: “Comment revoir oursinet?” (roughly, “How to See Oursinet Again”) is a 14-minute odyssey that splits the album into two halves, moving from spacey synth-pop to soaring balladry and back as Tellier journeys in search of the titular bear, a common figure in French Christmas stories. The song takes a while to unfold and compromises the album’s flow, but its scope and sheer breadth is undeniably impressive. More than a decade into his career, Tellier can’t help himself—he’s still a sucker for the big moment, the lofty idea, the EP-length monolith, and with L’Aventura, he’s done a fine job of sticking the landing.