If you don’t know Italian—or Italian history—you could be forgiven for thinking that Riccardo Tesi & Banditaliana’s new release, Maggio, is simply very pretty music.

“Maggio del Crinale” sets the tone by sounding as stately as Johann Pachelbel’s famous “Canon in D”, and if the ensuing “Scaccomatto” opens with prog-rock intensity, it soon detours into a happy-go-lucky Cajun accordion break.

Two things are immediately apparent: accordionist Tesi, saxophonist Claudio Carboni, guitarist Maurizio Geri, and percussionist Gigi Biolcati are all utterly masterful musicians, and the world’s their oyster. One can’t produce pearls without grit, however, which here takes the form of subtle but pointed political commentary.

“Merica”, for instance, is a mournful ballad about Italians leaving their homes to seek a better life in the New World. But it’s also a reminder to Tesi’s compatriots that they might want to save some empathy for the 21st-century boat people arriving on their shores from strife-torn North Africa.

“We are very sensitive to this kind of subject,” says the bandleader, speaking in effective but highly accented English from his home in Tuscany. “In some ways, we are a little bit like immigrants, because we travel a lot. And I think it is important, in Italy, to sing this kind of song, because people now forget to deal gently with immigrants. It’s important to remember that Italians have gone to the United States, to everywhere, so it’s important to help the people that are coming here now.

“It’s not easy; it’s a big problem,” he stresses. “But it’s important from a cultural view to develop solidarity. The same things that used to happen to us that are happening to African people now, 100 years later, so we have to remember that. Immigration is often a subject of our songs.”

That seems natural, for what unites Tesi and his bandmates is their appreciation for music from all over the globe.

“I am very curioso,” says the accordionist, briefly reverting to his native tongue. “I need to discover, to learn, and I like to listen to new music. In my iPod I have all kinds of different music, from Bach to Jethro Tull to dark metal to Salif Keita, for example. But I try to have my own style. I used to leave my compositions in my own culture—from Italy, from the Mediterranean, from traditional music—but now I do the music I would like to hear.

“I like to play with jazz musicians, with songwriters, and with rock musicians in the same way I work with people from different cultures,” he adds. “It’s very, very important to meet people different from me—and each meeting leaves something in my music that I didn’t have before.”

Riccardo Tesi & Banditaliana play the Vancouver Folk Music Festival’s Stage 3 on Friday (July 18).