The Bodhisattwa Trio and Croatia’s Mimika Orchestra Traverse Sonic Galaxies on New Jazz-Fusion Album ‘Frontier’

Within the first few minutes of the hour-plus album Frontier by The Bodhisattwa Trio, it’s communicated that journeys are among the most important thematic considerations for the Kolkata jazz-fusion trio. If you had heard it on their 2016 album Heart of Darkness in a much more sparse, noisier manner, their fourth album Frontier deals with space exploration and they have Zagreb’s Mimika Orchestra to help broaden their sonic vision even further.

The band describes the concept album – that comes with a comic book – as a record that “crosses the barriers of genres and stereotypes and aims at telling a unique story across space and time.” A note with the instrumental jazz-fusion album describes storyline as an interaction between astronauts (representing The Bodhisattwa Trio) and “forces of outerspace” (representing the Mimika Orchestra).

Released earlier in May by Croatian label Intek Music, Frontier was recorded live in a studio in Koprivnica, Croatia. While the trio’s bandleader Bodhisattwa Ghosh was the chief composer on all the songs, it’s arranged by Mimika Orchestra’s conductor Mak Murtić.

With Shonai aka Arunava Chatterjee and Premjit Dutta helming keys and drums respectively, the sonic palette of Frontier runs wild in a way due to the orchestra’s involvement. Where The Bodhisattwa Trio still retain their psychedelic, unsettling kind of dissonance and a sense of menace on certain tracks, the Mimika Orchestra’s combination of sax, trombone, flute, trumpet and tuba breathes a kind of grandiosity and cinematic storytelling element to the 11 songs on Frontier.

The track “Ghosts of Mars” perfectly articulates the melding of the two acts, bringing out a roaring sound going over vibrant guitars but also occasionally allowing themselves to descend into mystery and chaos. Songs like “Nuclear Apocalypse” introduce a determined groove, while “The Experiment” journeys through quiet and disquiet, incorporating an astonishing pace.

While the comic book takes readers through the album concept of three astronauts on their way to find a new inhabitable planet after the destruction of Earth, producer Hrscanec says the music also conveys all the ideas. “It’s a travel from Earth to the place in deep space where Bodhisattwa searches for inspiration for his music. It’s a place where you can also easily travel if you just close your eyes when you’re listening to this music,” he says in a statement.

Songs like “Lunar Month” travel at a slower but rewarding pace, while the trio often lets the orchestra take centerstage and vice versa on songs like “Jupiter: Collision Course and Free Float,” featuring fist-tight drum work from Dutta. To mirror the idea of space travel, there’s the psychedelic, guitar-centric “Europa Swim,” one of the first tracks released from the project back in 2020. While that one sounds like it’s straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, “Countergenesis” amps up on energetic, experimental jazz that the Bodhisattwa Trio have always championed.

The acts inch towards a sense of resolve towards the end of the album, deeper entrenched in ambient and psychedelic elements, like Ghosh’s starry solo meditation on “Final Frontier.” At the end of Frontier, the astronauts reach a new planet that’s an exact copy of Earth, which they dub “Earth X.” The resultant track evokes a bit of hope, bittersweetness, confusion and triumph as it centers around one of Ghosh’s guitar melodies.

Listen to ‘Frontier’ below. Stream on more platforms here. Register for the listening session and comic book launch on June 4th in Kolkata here.