“Pohaku Motu” Ka‘imi Hanano‘eau (Lo‘ihi)

Is Hawaiian music a specific type of musical performance — Hawaiian language lyrics supported by acoustic guitar, ukulele, “stand-up bass” and steel guitar — or is it any type of music sung in the Hawaiian language? Henry Kapono Ka‘aihue suggested the latter in 2006 when he recorded “Na Ali‘i” and “Hi‘ilawe” as straight power rock, and opened a concert at the Hawaii Theatre with a similar arrangement of ­“Hawai‘i Pono‘i” later that same year. Several songs on Ka‘imi Hanano‘eau’s new full-length album build on that foundation.

First is his majestic power-rock treatment of “Pua Hone.” It is an impressive reworking of one of Dennis Kamakahi’s best-known songs and a fine tribute to Kamakahi.

Hanano‘eau goes up-tempo with a rock arrangement of “Noho Pai Pai” that would challenge all but the fittest hula dancers. Hanano‘eau plays almost all the instruments throughout the project, but Luke D’Addario sits in on drums for this one.

The third Hawaiian rocker, “Ke Uluwehi O Ke Kai,” not only works as rock but is a fine example of Hanano‘eau’s falsetto voice as well.

And there’s more. Hanano‘eau combines several genres with a bilingual rock and reggae arrangement of “Shine,” originally a Top 20 hit for Collective Soul. He slips ­Hawaiian lyrics into Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” and repurposes the medley of the folk/blues classic “House of the Rising Sun,” as the platform for unrelated lyrics about life in Hawaii. (Taking the melody of an existing song and putting new lyrics to it was an accepted practice in the 19th century.)

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“Resilience” Lance Takamiya (Akule Productions LLC)

Slack key guitarist Lance Takamiya responds to the first year of the pandemic with a conveniently packaged collection of 10 original compositions that he released as separate download-only singles last year. Nine are instrumentals that can almost be guaranteed to inspire clear thoughts and deep breathing, or, as he writes in the liner notes “a sense of peace, joy and hope through trying times.”

Takamiya adds his voice to the 10th song, “By the Ocean Shore.” He explains in the expanded liner notes on his website that his father and father-in-law were fishermen, and describes the song as “a contemporary folk song portraying the ocean shore as a refuge for restoring vitality and forging inseparable bonds with family and friends.” That explains why it’s there, but as the only song with vocals in an otherwise all-instrumental album it is still an outlier that would fit best on an album where vocals predominate.

George Winston’s Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters series established a high standard for slack key recordings in the 1990s by making it standard procedure to list the slack key tunings used in each song. Takamiya maintains that high standard here — he not only documents the tunings but also his choice of strings; he uses steel strings on four songs and nylon strings on six.

Takamiya’s “Resilience” is a soothing soundtrack for these stressful times.

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