Internationally acclaimed Scottish group the Brian Molley Quartet release their fourth album, Intercontinental on Friday 17th June, 2022. The album was recorded with special guest, Indian percussionist and film soundtrack composer/musician, Krishna Kishor, who added his various percussion instruments by remote recording.
The quartet first worked with Chennai-based Kishor while touring India in 2017, performing a headline show together for Madras Jazz Festival as part of the British Council’s UK/India season.
It was very much a meeting of similar musical minds. It was also the start of an innovative and productive collaboration despite Krishna and the four of us living on opposite ends of the planet. ~ Brian Molley
Molley’s quartet has returned to India to perform again with Kishor on two more tours and Intercontinental was recorded by linking online between Glasgow and Chennai in 2021. Kishor will travel to Scotland for the first time in summer 2022 to perform alongside BMQ at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Made in Scotland programme.
Glasgow-based Molley, a former Jazzwise magazine One to Watch, formed his quartet in 2012. The group features some of the finest musicians from the UK’s jazz and world music scenes, with pianist Tom Gibbs, double bassist Brodie Jarvie and drummer Stuart Brown joining Molley.
Their enthusiastically received debut album, Clock was released in 2013 and was described by BBC Radio 3 as ‘a well-crafted and classy debut’ and by London Jazz News as ‘a minor masterpiece…strikingly good.’ Colour and Movement, their follow-up from 2017, was greeted with similar praise. All About Jazz said, ‘Molley’s tone is gorgeous, he never wastes a note’ and The Scotsman described Molley’s tenor saxophone as singing ‘beautifully, sultry and lyrical.’
The quartet has been selected three times for the Made in Scotland programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and represented the cutting edge in UK jazz at Rochester International Jazz Festival, New York as part of Made in the UK 2015. On the same trip the group played well-received club dates in New York City, drawing enthusiastic responses at Silvana in Harlem and WhyNotJazzRoom in Greenwich Village.
Their numerous national and international tours include appearances at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester jazz festivals, a live session for BBC Radio 3’s Jazz Line-Up in 2017 and several trips to tour, collaborate and record in India. The quartet’s first collaboration with Rajasthan’s Asin Langa Ensemble included a nationwide tour of India as well as a reciprocal arrangement that brought the renowned Indian folk musicians to the UK to tour for the first time in 2018. A resulting track, Journeys in Hand, composed by Molley, was selected for Songlines Magazine’s June 2018 covermount CD.
The quartet’s special guest on the new album, Kishor is regarded as a world-class percussionist specialising in the traditions, practices and instrumentation of music from his home state of Tamil Nadu in South India. He has performed extensively in India as well as in the US and Europe. Krishna has contributed percussion to the soundtracks of over 100 Bollywood films and recently contributed his own original score to Annabelle Sethupathi, the 2021 Indian Tamil language comedy thriller.
Krishna is an amazing musician. He always knows instinctively what colours and rhythms to add to the music and working with him is really inspiring. We’re really happy with the way the album turned out, considering the unconventional recording process, and we can’t wait to welcome Krishna to Scotland to play some concerts in August. ~ Brian Molley