line up

• Monica Akihary (voice)
• Niels Brouwer (guitar & prepared guitar )
• Sandip Bhattacharya (tabla & percussion)

• country:
  Netherlands
• label:
  Enja Records M. Winckelmann GmbH
• type:
  Band, Solist, Composer/Songwriter
• gender:
  male, female
• instrumentation:
  instrumental, vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Boi Akih - Foundation Asele

Trio Brouwer-Akihary-Bhattacharya plays people music, colourful, organic and always passionate.

Niels and Monica has been working intensively with Sandip Bhattcharya since 2004. In the intervening period their music has undergone an extraordinary development. They have evolved their own musical language whereby sound and elements from various traditions take on a new meaning. Monica's warmth and charisma is such that even though she is singing in Haruku (a Moluccan language), the listener is immediately drawn into the music. The trio plays acoustically. However no two compositions sound the same, thanks to the free treatment of composed material, Niels' inventive guitar playing, sometimes prepared, the wealth of Monica's vocal sound and the great diversity of colours from Sandips' range of instruments.

'Boi Akih is a very convincing live act. Tabla player Sandip Bhattacharya, vocalist Monica Akihary and guitarist Niels Brouwer bring to life the intimacy of the songs. It was the gripping and fresh musical interaction, with Akihary singing partly in Haruku, the acoustic sounds, melodies and rhythm that Niels Brouwer created and the tabla's that enraptured us.' (Jazzthetik 10 D)

The trio of vocalist Monica Akihary, guitarist Niels Brouwer and Indian percussionist Sandip Bhattcharyaotherwise known as Boi Akihhas been playing together since 2004, and the deep empathy between the three was apparent in a thrilling performance, where the rhythms of India fused with Akihary's Haruku language of the Moluccan islands of Indonesia and some breathless improvisation from all three. (All About Jazz 2010)