Stories — Releases

We are extremely pleased to tell you that for that past 12 months we've been working with London's Strut Records on a compilation entitled Aloha Got Soul: Soul, AOR & Disco in Hawai‘i 1979-1985, and it hits stores worldwide in February 2016. Compiled by Roger Bong, the aptly-titled Aloha Got Soul comprises 16 tracks of inspired funk, disco, jazz and AOR recorded in Hawai‘i. The release is the first definitive compilation representing a vibrant and varied era of recordings, and we're hoping it shines a whole new light on the Hawaiian Islands’ not-so-distant music culture of the 1970s and 1980s....

Mike Lundy's The Rhythm Of Life is finally available again in its full glory: the nine-track quintessential Hawaiian funk/soul opus that has come to represent the birth of the Aloha Got Soul record label and the rebirth of Lundy's almost forgotten masterpiece. Here's a snippet from the liner notes which expresses my feelings for this special project: "There couldn’t have been a more perfect collaboration with which to launch the Aloha Got Soul label. Working with Mike has been a blessing. Coincidence has found us time after time along our journey. We share a mutual respect for each other’s honesty...

The premise behind every Aloha Got Soul release is to tell a story beyond the music. The story of Mike Lundy is mysterious, complex, and layered with good intentions. The story of this reissue project is marked by multiple coincidences throughout the process of rereleasing music from The Rhythm Of Life—so much so, in fact, that I've been told these aren't coincidences. This story was meant to be. A large part of the unfolding story of Mike Lundy's The Rhythm Of Life reissue project will be told in the liner notes of the LP release, due out November 28th, 2015....

I often think back to the autumn of 2013—the year my life underwent a big shift in all areas—and the blog post I wrote with it. "To say that September brought extraordinary opportunities to my door would understate the fact that it was probably the busiest, craziest, most serendipitous and exhausting month in my life thus far, passing in what feels like a single day." That's from this post made two years ago, when apparently I was working harder than ever before in life, love, and the label (although at the time Aloha Got Soul was a year away from...

"I found that special find". Look closely, and you'll see those words inscribed in the dead wax on the flip side of AGS-7002, the second release from the Aloha Got Soul blog-turned-label (but still a blog!). The idea came to me in January after picking up a copy of RVNG Intl's anthology music by Ariel Kalma. RVNG's attention to packaging quality is consistently superb, all the way down to the dead wax. The Kalma release featured different phrases etched on each side. Inspired, I wanted to do the same for AGS-7002. So I texted Mike Lundy to make sure I...