For over 25 years, singer and lyricist Monica Akihary and guitarist-composer Niels Brouwer have formed the heart and soul of Boi Akih. Boundless curiosity has driven them to ever new experiments and discoveries. As a result, they are now at home in musical traditions from all corners of the world - from modern jazz to classical Indian music and from Melanesian, African and European folk to improvised music. For the musicians, all these different traditions and influences are not the final destination, but an inspiration and a starting point for musical development. They can be heard in the colour and texture of their music, in complex compositions and free improvisation, in their use of voice and playing techniques, in daring line-ups and also in the unusual collection of instruments they use - often self-built and tailored to their own individual musical ideas. Boi Akih’s unique sound emerges in the constant interaction between the musicians and the sources they draw from. This sound, surprisingly new and yet completely recognizable, mixes acoustic sounds and electronic soundscapes with the versatile, warm voice of Monica Akihary, who sometimes sings in English and sometimes in Haruku, the language of her father’s island. In Boi Akih’s musical projects, their deep, personal musical explorations result in a harmonious blending of seemingly incompatible sounds, rhythms and tonalities, dissolving the boundaries between old and modern, between music, story and poetry, and between East, West, North and South.