Boi Akih

Amsterdam based guitarist-composer Niels Brouwer and vocalist and lyricist Monica Akihary have formed a duo under the name of BOI AKIH since 1997. They form the inseparable core of collaborations with a wide range of musicians and poets. Boundless curiosity has driven BOI AKIH to ever new experiments and discoveries. As a result they are now at home in very diverse musical traditions - from modern jazz to classical Indian music and from Melanesian, African and European folk to improvised music. These different traditions and influences are not the final destination for them, but an inspiration and starting point for musical development. They can be heard in the colour and texture of their music, in complex compositions and free improvisation, in the use of voice and playing techniques, in daring line-ups and in the unusual collection of instruments they use - often self-built and tailored to their own musical ideas. Monica Akihary sometimes sings in English and sometimes in Haruku, the language of her father's island. BOI AKIH's musical explorations result in harmonious blending of seemingly incompatible sounds, rhythms and tonalities. For example the symbiosis of European, Indian and Indonesian traditions in U Wai and eclectic musical reinterpretations of Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell (Circles in a Square Society ). Their latest project Storyteller, further dissolves boundaries: between old and modern, music and poetry, between east, west, north and south.