"Hanau Hou"
Hawaiian Style Band
(Mountain Apple)
The Hawaiian Style Band — Wade "Che" Cambern, Robi Kahakalau, Bryan Kessler and Merri Lake McGarry — blew up big in the early 1990s.
The group received three Na Hoku Hanohano Awards between 1991 and 1995. Cambern revives the HSB legacy here with drummer/percussionist Garin Poliahu as co-producer and Tani Lynn Fujimoto on vocals.
Cambern and Poliahu do a fine job re-creating the vocal arrangements of old, with seven studio singers joining them on the backing vocals. "The Ancient Voice" and "I Don’t Know You at All" show Cambern is a strong as ever on vocals.
Fujimoto gets the spotlight on three others. On "Love & Honesty," an HSB hit from 1992, she sings the part originally sung by Kahakalau.
There’s no obvious reason for redoing the song, but Cambern certainly has the right to do so.
With "Ke Aloha," written many years ago by Lei Collins and Maddy Lam, Cambern and Poliahu redo a Hawaiian standard in classic HSB style. On the other hand, a Jawaiian-lite remake of "If I Fell," the Beatles classic, is a pointless clunker.
"The Ancient Voice"
"Karma"
Krystilez
(Krystilez/We Are Hi)
Krystilez has been an important figure in island hip-hop for almost a decade as a solo artist and founding member of the Angry Locals (with Big Mox, Osna and Mic Tre), and for his leadership in persuading the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts to recognize hip-hop with its own category in the Hoku Awards.
"Karma" reaffirms his place as an island hip-hop entrepreneur. On one level he’s calling out other artists and a concert promoter on various issues.
Go deeper and "Karma" also addresses local political and historical issues such as the imposition of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887 and the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.
"I’m an angry local/You cannot tell me what for do/I am your karma catching up to you!"
The lyrics deliver the message; the music video adds the details.
Buy "Karma" at www.cdbaby.com. See the video at www.WeAreHi.com."Na Pua Mohala"
"Karma"
Kupaoa and Kaulana
(Hulu Kupuna)
Kellen and Lihau Paik are multiple Hoku Award winners as members of Kupaoa and individually as songwriters and record producers. For this project, they teamed up with a second group, Kaulana, three Japanese musicians who share their passion for Hawaiian music. The five friends combined their talents as performers and writers to create 10 new Hawaiian songs and translate two Japanese songs into Hawaiian.
Some were inspired by the experience of sharing a home on Kauai, others by touring together in Japan. Two express support for the survivors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
The instrumental arrangements sound like Kupaoa but with more musicians. The really neat thing is hearing the Paiks harmonizing with other voices and enjoying the additional combinations of voices. The group’s harmonies on "Ka Nani o Moloka‘i" are particularly nice.
Oldies fans will take note of the quintet’s Hawaiian-language version of Kyu Sakamoto’s 1963 hit, "Ue o Muite Aruko," which was released in the United States as "Sukiyaki." The liner notes explain that the English lyrics of the 1978 remake by A Taste of Honey are not a translation of the original Japanese lyrics and that Kellen Paik’s Hawaiian lyrics are closer to the original in describing the feelings of a lonely man who looks skyward while his tears fall.
"Ka Nani O Moloka’i"
"Po‘ohala"
Ioane
(Laua‘e Entertainment)
John James Ioane Rodrigues is the youngest son of Vickie Ii Rodrigues and part of a family whose contributions to the music of Hawaii span several generations.
Rodrigues joined his mother and talented siblings in recording two "family albums" for Hula Records in the 1960s, but this is his first full-length project as a solo artist. It includes several original compositions and songs written by his mother, great-grandmother (Catherine Stevens Ii) and great-grandfather (James Ii).
The cover art shows Makee Ailana (Makee Island) in Kapiolani Park, the subject of James Ii’s best-known song. Rodrigues does a beautiful job with it.
Nine years younger than his closest sibling, Rodrigues came of age in the early years of statehood. All but one of these songs is sung in Hawaiian, but several have arrangements that blend elements of pop, bossa nova and exotica music. Rodrigues’ approach expands the horizons of Hawaiian music in imaginative directions.
"Po‘ohala" is available at www.cdbaby.com.
"Honolulu"
"Lava in Their Soul"
Chucky Souza
(Malama Music)
Chucky Souza was known in the 1970s as the composer of "Railway Stations," a catchy country-rock tune Cecilio & Kapono included on their second album. Four decades later Souza is stepping forward as a bilingual singer-songwriter with a Hawaiian nationalist agenda.
The title song poses a timely question: When will the people with "lava in their soul" get fed up with waiting for positive change and erupt?
Other songs question the course of Hawaiian history and denounce the tainted annexation of Hawaii by the United States in 1898.
Souza speaks for residents of almost all backgrounds with "Too Much Cars," a song about the toxic results of unrelenting development.
"Some people come over here and get it/Most people just come here and take it," he sings. "Too much cars. No nuff land. Where you going go if you no can?
Souza isn’t only about mele kue (songs of resistance). "Rabbit Island Sunrise," a hapa-haole song set in the shadow of the Windward Oahu landmark, brings a softer albeit enigmatic song to the project. There are a couple of love songs here, too.
With Kirk Thompson producing, arranging and playing keyboards, Kevin Dailey on drums, Michael Paulo on sax and Creed Fernandez on percussion, Souza has all-star players behind him.
Thompson gives him some smooth-jazz grooves to work with, too.
"Too Much Cars"
