LIQUID SONGS Enduring musical stories – open, inventive, reciprocal, dynamic, distinctive LIQUID SONGS is the latest album of Boi Akih. The core duo of vocalist Monica Akihary and guitarist-composer Niels Brouwer is joined byTobias Klein (contrabass clarinet, bass clarinet) and the Japanese classical percussionist Ryoko Imai to form a new unit. LIQUID SONGS is inspired by the rediscovery and re-invention of ancient sacred stories from the Moluccan archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, on keeping them flowing and extending them into the present. This process forms a guide for the musical as well as the narrative elements that converge in LIQUID SONGS. Four musicians unfold the music In a totally original line-up, bringing a rich diversity of temperaments, colourings and personal experiences to bear. Niels Brouwer composed ‘liquid’ core melodies, Akihary wrote nine very personal texts, which serve as anchor points for the compositions and allow her voice to trace the full circle formed by the Pacific Ocean’s Melanesian region and the delta of the Dutch lowlands. LIQUID SONGS is an artistic example of the constant whittling of identities in order to mine their deeper energy and to employ it to enrich the music, something also present in the Afro-American jazz tradition.