Stories

New Release: The New World, Volume 1 — an inspiring 1974 folk soundtrack from Hawaii to the world

Releases

New Release: The New World, Volume 1 — an inspiring 1974 folk soundtrack from Hawaii to the world

Few if any copies of The New World, Volume 1 have surfaced since I first became aware of the LP thanks to Oliver Seguin. Before the label took shape in 2015, I'd seen (heard, rather) Oliver play the cuts "Soul Catchers" and "Such A Lovely Garden" only a handful of times (they're not necessarily DJ-friendly tracks, but rather for deeper listening sessions, so it wasn't often that he'd bring his copy to a gig).  Looking through my notes and old emails, I had first reached out to one of the members of East Of Midnight, Liz Hahn (formerly Haberman), in 2014 —...

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Mike Lundy & Maryanne Ito: live in concert February 16th, 2024

Events

Mike Lundy & Maryanne Ito: live in concert February 16th, 2024

Mark your calendars:Mike Lundy returns to the stage with his first live performance in six years, with a double headliner featuring Maryanne Ito. The event is free and family friendly — held on Friday, February 16th at the Capitol Modern in downtown Honolulu, from 6pm to 9pm.Yes—Mike Lundy, LIVE! 🎉And—with Maryanne Ito! 🥳 Joining Mike Lundy's band is Joelene, whose latest release on AGS is a collab 7-inch with Your Song Is Good. She'll provide the backing vocals on several of Mike's standout originals. Maryanne Ito's backing band includes two musicians from her Live At The Atherton album: Dae Han and...

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New Release: Joelene and YOUR SONG IS GOOD "You're Young" - Modern Pacific lover's rock

New Release: Joelene and YOUR SONG IS GOOD "You're Young" - Modern Pacific lover's rock

The idea for this release came about when we started discussing plans for the 2023 edition of Soul Time in Tokyo. Back in 2018, we collaborated with Jun Saito, bandleader of the Tokyo-based group YOUR SONG IS GOOD, on a 12-inch release featuring their band and a local Hawaii singer, Nick Kurosawa. The idea then was to cover a "classic" Hawaii rare groove release — and what came to mind first was Babadu, one of the holy grails of Hawaiian soul.  The resulting 12-inch sold quickly. It featured a vocal version with Nick Kurosawa, and an instrumental version with Tokyo's VIDEOTAPEMUSIC, as well...

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New Release: Max High's ambient, electronic explorations on "Recordings 3" (AGS-074)

Releases

New Release: Max High's ambient, electronic explorations on "Recordings 3" (AGS-074)

It feels as if it's been quite some time since we released a new music project. After reissuing two timelss albums from Kalapana's early days, followed by a collaboration with the legendary Brother Noland, we're decidedly taking a break from the spotlight-filled stage of classic local music to focus on our roots: bringing attention to lesser known, often under-represented artists in these islands.  Max High is a multi-instrumentalist of Japanese-Filipino-French descent, currently living and working on Oahu. He moved to the islands in 2021, and has since called Honolulu his home. Each year since the pandemic, Max has used his ongoing Recordings series as a process of...

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Recap: Japan Tour 2023, Tokyo to Hiroshima to Osaka (and stops in-between)

Events Recap

Recap: Japan Tour 2023, Tokyo to Hiroshima to Osaka (and stops in-between)

Over the years, there's been a number of Aloha Got Soul events in Japan, the majority being held in Tokyo thanks to the help of our friends at Kakubarhythm. When we started thinking about what 2023 would look like for AGS in Japan, we reached out to Rush Production for assistance. The brothers behind Rush -- Yasushi and Fumi -- have for many years worked with Tommy Guerrero (we're big fans!), and after an introduction to Rush in early 2020 (pre-COVID) thanks to our friend Hashim Bharoocha, we felt we could count on Rush to create something special on behalf of Aloha Got Soul. So we...

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