Mikko H. Haapoja, who will release his second solo album at the Etno-Espa 2026 festival, makes new and distinctive electroacoustic bass bowed lyre based music. On Haapoja’s upcoming album, multilayered textures of bowed lyres, human voice and nyckelharpa are combined with soundscapes from different corners of the globe. Haapoja’s solo music is set in a dense forest that grows in a multi-world metropolis – in the pieces sounds from mountain birch forests, the sources of the Amazon and the Tokyo subway can overlap, creating yet unheard worlds.

Haapoja’s solo debut album Unheard Landscapes reached number 16 on the WMCE global music chart in September 2023. In April 2025, Haapoja performed at the Osaka World Expo on his second solo tour of Japan, taking the Finnish bowed lyre to the World Expo stages for the first time in history.

Mikko H. Haapoja – jouhikko, bass jouhikko, key harp, cello, programming, soundscape