Stories — Releases

Hawaii is one of the last places on Earth to ring in the new year (which means we get to watch the world's fireworks and celebrations online before enjoying our own). And while we really wanted to get this out to the world before 2019 was pau, we figured it'd be best to save it for the new year and start 2020 off with a bang. FRNT BZNZZ's new release is a surefire winner for radio and dance floors in 2020. Have a listen: Entitlement Issues by FRNTBZNZZ Not just another tender modern-boogie duet, “Was It Love” on the A-side...

Tender Leaf is another crazy rare, ridiculously expensive album from Hawaii's recent past. Record in the 1980s, the eponymous album is a breezy, sometimes psychedelic collection of songs about life, love, and the natural beauty of the Hawaiian Islands. To this day, the Tender Leaf LP remains one of the most coveted albums of recorded music from Hawaii. Tender Leaf formed in the 1980s when Murray Compoc and Darryl Valdez met while working as drivers of the city bus (TheBus). The two shared a love of music and soon started jamming together, eventually forming a band. Both Compoc and Valdez...

This one's been at least a year coming. Amidst all the projects Kit Ebersbach and I have going together (which started with recorded Nick Kurosawa's debut EP), Kit's been passing me new compositions he's been working on almost nightly for years. Earlier this year, we slipped his Moonbath album into the internet — hopefully you caught that one. (If not, there's always time to go back and dive in.) Now, we present perhaps Kit's most thought-provoking collection of music to date, Untilities. Untilities by Kit Ebersbach I know why Kit Ebersbach wanted to call this album Untilities. At least, let...

I first met (and heard) Dae Han at the January 2017 preview screening for our (still in progress) Aloha Got Soul documentary film. He was the drummer for Maryanne Ito's outfit, which also featured Gilbert Batangan on bass and Jabari Prevost on keys. My first impression is still the same: Dae's swift, technical style suits just about any sound, from jazz and R&B to reggae and hip hop. That evening, they played mostly original tunes — in fact, the band was so good it convinced me from that moment that Maryanne needed to record a live album, to try and...