Stories — Releases

Introducing a new compilation entitled From These Shores, the otherworldly sound of softly psychedelic, cosmic folk and psych from Hawaii. Hazy, lazy, steeped in sunshine; these 13 tracks are gathered here thanks to Aloha Got Soul curators Roger Bong and Oliver Seguin. Spanning the 1960s throughout the 1980s, From These Shores offers curious finds from every corner of the Hawaiian Islands — from the North Shore of Oahu (Gordon Broad) to the streets of Honolulu (Burgess & Brooks), the spiritual escapes of Maui (Merrell Fankhauser) to the spirited efforts of Bahá'í musicians (East Of Midnight), the low-key lounges of Waikiki...

Today we're releasing another 7-inch single from FRNT BZNZZ (Front Business), whose first pair of tracks on wax dropped June 2018. You might recall that first release being a distinctly modern direction for the label: raw, electronic funk / boogie tunes that hinted not at the past (like Nick Kurosawa's EP, Home, which featured three covers of classic tunes from Kalapana, Bobby Caldwell, and Sam Cooke), but painted the future sound of Hawaii — "Honolulu night funk", the artist calls it. This new single follows the same path with even more layers of complexity in the production. Spacey, moody, funky,...

In 2014, four days before Howard Shapiro's birthday, I sent him an email through his website, Performing and Fine Artists for World Peace. I had no idea it was his birthday (unlike my encounter with Mike Lundy, where I knew before our interview that we shared the same birth day). I didn't receive a reply from Howard for several months. In February 2015, a month after the label's first release, I wrote back to check in. "Did you receive my note?" I wrote. Yes, he had — in fact he replied right away and was awaiting my response. Funny how...