‘E Ku‘u Lei, My Love’
Kuana Torres Kahele featuring Maila Gibson
(Kuana Torres Kahele)
Kuana Torres Kahele is following his Na Hoku Hanohano Award-winning Christmas album, "Hilo for the Holidays," with "Kahele," a 14-song collection of original songs that will be released next month. He’s started the countdown to its release with this download-only single. This beautiful work displays his command of several genres.
The initial arrangement — a single acoustic guitar and Kahele’s voice caressing Hawaiian lyrics — would sell the song to his core fan base, but that’s only the beginning. A string section and piano expand the instrumentation, and the lyrics change from Hawaiian to English. Maila Gibson replaces Kahele as the solo vocalist, and when Kahele and Gibson then perform as a duo, there’s a sense of completion in both languages.
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"E Ku’u Lei, My Love"
‘Cretin Crossover’
The Smitz
(Audio Bento)
Give it up for the Smitz! The rock quartet —Johnny Random (guitar and vocals), Taylor Rice (bass), Brennen Widget (drums) and Kalani Punani (guitar) — has all the tools to break out big here and blow up nationally.
Random, the group’s resident lyricist, has wide-ranging interests. His lyrics comment on the local alt-rock scene, political and economic oppression, relationships, alienation, the importance of unity in the struggle for a better future, and the mindless prejudice against Caucasians in Hawaii: "the people that you see that represent bigotry/Are white men from another century," he reminds the racists in a song titled "Hate Against."
Lyrics, important in this type of music, are sometimes unintelligible in performance. The Smitz include them in the liner notes booklet along with production credits, thank-yous and provocative artwork.
The album is equally diverse in the musical genres represented. The 17 songs pull together various combinations of punk rock, metal, reggae, ska and surf rock. The Smitz do well with all of them.
"Wooly Wooly," the final song listed, captures the innocent sound of the Top 40 hits of the early ’60s. It’s a gem. The unlisted rambling monologues that begin playing several minutes after the end of "Wooly Wooly" are not.
"Wooly Wooly"
