If anyone could make this project work, it’s Jakub Józef Orliński. Poland’s coolest classical star, a countertenor who sounds like a Botticelli angel and busts out breakdancing moves in his down-time, has joined forces with pianist and composer Aleksander Dębicz and a selection of Poland’s musical finest to create an album of ‘New Baroque’: Purcell, Handel, Monteverdi and Vivaldi with one silk-slippered foot in the 18th century and the other (high-top trainers) in the 21st.

Of course, they’re not the first to try and put the rock into baroque. From Loussier to L’Arpeggiata, this is a well-established path, albeit one with more than its fair share of potholes. So how smoothly do the latest generation navigate it?

The first thing to say is that this is clearly a passion project – music as Orliński and his collaborators genuinely want to hear and share it. The absence of cynicism is no guarantee of quality, but it’s a good starting point, feeding the energy of improvised sections.

The second is that the performances themselves are unimpeachable. Booklet notes may describe Orliński deploying a ‘more modern’ take on the countertenor voice in certain tracks, but it’s a subtle palette of shades: scrupulously tasteful and controlled. Dębicz’s playing is limpid and crisp (and how much better the choice of a shape-shifting piano here, rather than the anachronistic albatross of a harpsichord), while Wojciech Gumiński (bass instruments) and Marcin Ułanowski (percussion) fill out textures varied with bass guitar, moog, kazoo and wurlitzer, with a classy guest appearance from soprano Madison Nonoa.

But the repertoire is a disappointment: the same handful of Purcell tracks – ‘Music for a while’, ‘Fairest Isle’, ‘Sound the trumpet’ – that we’ve already heard ‘jazzed up’ endlessly. They’re not badly done; Dębicz plays a good game with the latter, Orliński the straight man, whose foursquare delivery is abruptly abandoned after just a few bars, pushed aside by a freer, wittier instrumental improvisation – self-important trumpet transformed into self-mocking kazoo. The ostinato of ‘Strike the viol’ becomes a thumping bass riff, the anchor for an escalating and intensifying jam session.

There’s greater musical kinship elsewhere, however. Francesco Fago’s ravishing ‘Alla gente’ becomes a pop ballad with only the slightest harmonic intervention, a heartbeat of percussion rippling across its glassy surface; Monteverdi takes on a trippy, trancelike freedom in ‘Oblivion’; Vivaldi’s Giustino gets a Sakamoto-esque piano-and-voice reworking. To what end? If you find yourself asking that question then, I suspect, this album isn’t for you.