The Bodhisattwa Trio is an experimental jazz fusion/avant-garde band from Calcutta and Delhi. Drawing influences from life, they have created a mix of original instrumental compositions with special emphasis on harmonic and rhythmic expansion, theme and variation, virtuosity and spontaneous improvisation. Their fourth studio album Frontier is a one-of-a-kind Indo-Croatian modern jazz collaboration with the critically acclaimed jazz ensemble Mimika Orchestra from Zagreb, Croatia. Frontier, which is streaming on all major audio platforms, is a concept album that crosses the barriers of genres and stereotypes and aims at telling a unique story across space and time. The story has two points of view: an interaction between the astronauts (The Bodhisattwa Trio) and the forces of outer space (Mimika Orchestra). A Telegraph chat with Bodhisattwa....

Why the name Frontier?

Frontier is very much a sci-fi concept album. The basic concept is that we (The Bodhisattwa Trio) are three astronauts who have escaped Earth which is being destroyed because of a nuclear apocalypse and we have to travel across multiple universes to find ourselves a new home planet. Space is the final frontier for mankind, and we have to take this interdimensional journey to cross our final frontier before we find our new home planet. It is also a musical frontier for us. We as musicians have never done anything as grand and challenging as this and I believe we have crossed all the barriers of genres and definitions and created a sound which has never been heard before. Hence the name ‘Frontier’.

How would you like to describe the music on this album?

I don’t have a definition for this sound and there is no reference point if you want to compare this with any other forms of music. It is completely unique. I can say that this definitely falls under the umbrella of jazz. It is a contemporary experimental jazz fusion sound, but with the interplay between us (the trio) and Mimika Orchestra, there are footprints of Balkan traditional music, contemporary European classical music, contemporary jazz, drum-n-bass, trip-hop, alternative rock, dream pop and even a definite influence of Indian Classical music (especially in the title track Final Frontier, which is based on Raga Bhairavi). I believe this album is also geographically very unique, because it’s a collaboration between a band from India and an orchestra from Croatia. That’s what makes this so special in my opinion.

Would it be fair to say you are a science fiction fan?

Always. I’m a huge science fiction nerd. This was there throughout my life. Ever since I was a kid and I started learning about the solar system, planets, galaxies, who and what is our planet Earth, I was always fascinated about what lies beyond the sky above. I always dreamt of being an astronaut and exploring the cosmos. I kept nurturing this feeling and gradually got into all kinds of science fiction, especially films and books about outer space. Even to this day I keep looking for inspiration in works of science fiction. 2001: A Space Odyssey (both the novel by Arthur C. Clarke and the film by Stanley Kubrick) has a huge influence on the concept of Frontier. Carl Sagan’s anthology series Cosmos remains one of my favourite works. Of course, pop culture masterpieces like Star Wars, Alien, and so on were always among my favourite fictional works. Currently, on my bucket list is the novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I have to read that real soon.

How does that factor into your approach to creating music?

Massively. It helps me to construct the concept and give the music a definite story to work upon. It’s always helpful to give a piece of music some purpose and some context. And in the case of Frontier, the whole concept came first and the music was composed and structured based on the different chapters of the narrative that I wish to tell. So that the listener has a solid reference as to what the music expresses and why the album sounds like this, we have created a short comic book, which is going to be the physical format of the album.

Tell us more about the jazz ensemble Mimika Orchestra. When did you meet them for the first time?

We actually met them in Zagreb on October 10, 2022, at the rehearsal sessions three days before the recording! But I was in touch with their composer/arranger Mak Murtic since January 2022, and we were constantly in touch through Skype, Zoom, email and WhatsApp preparing the arrangements of the album. Mimika Orchestra is an extremely cutting-edge contemporary jazz ensemble. Their sound has strong footprints of traditional music in the Balkans but it’s a very global and international sound. It’s very very well structured and thought out and it sounds really modern, futuristic, avant-garde and unique. There is a definite sense of theatrics in their music and the approach I believe is extremely intelligent and challenging. Which makes Mimika Orchestra one of the most important acts in 21st-century music.

Why did you decide to collaborate with them?

Well, it’s an interesting story. When Premjit, Shonai and I were creating the music for this album, we always felt something was missing. The design that we had in mind was that of a very grand sound, and the three of us could not capture the full spectrum of what was required. We needed an Orchestra to complete the vision. I was not sure who and how, but it had to be a contemporary orchestra from Europe because I wanted that European sensibility. So I asked my good friends Marin and Helena from Koprivnica, Croatia (record company owners and producers of Intek Music) if they could help us. They knew our sound very well, and they suggested that I speak to Mak Murtic and his ensemble Mimika Orchestra from Zagreb. When I heard their live concerts on YouTube and listened to their album A Place Glowing a Brilliant Red, I was in awe of their works and I could completely relate to it personally. I immediately knew that this was the missing piece of the puzzle. And when Mak heard our music, we immediately connected musically as well as philosophically. That’s how it started and finally, during the rehearsals, everything fell into place like magic.

What are the pros and cons of recording live?

At the end of the day, it’s a jazz album. So it has to be recorded live. That is the number one prerequisite if it has to be a jazz record. There is no other way. There is a lot of improvisation and spontaneous interplay within the music which cannot be captured at all if it is recorded separately, part by part. That’s what makes Live Recording so special. And we couldn’t have recorded 11 tracks in two days with 11 musicians if it was not done Live! The downside of recording live is that if anyone makes a small mistake, everyone has to stop, and we have to take the whole thing again from the top. That can be quite stressful, but if the musician is of a certain calibre, it is a very simple challenge and all it needs is a little bit of patience and confidence.

Sci-fi has informed some of the greatest music, from Pink Floyd to Kraftwerk. Did they inspire you?

Absolutely. I have listened to Kraftwerk since I was a kid, and I think you know that I am a massive Pink Floyd fan. And also a lot of experimental fusion music and jazz fusion from the ’70s till today has hugely inspired our music. Creative and unconventional sounds are a hallmark of experimental music, and we try to incorporate new ideas and sounds by listening to all these amazing artists. No music is truly “original” in that sense, so it is our challenge to draw inspiration from the greats and take the journey forward to call it “our own sound”.

Recording photography: Bojan Kostic