Stories

In 1970s Hawaii, band logos were the thing to have — Summer, Kalapana, Country Comfort, and Olomana were some of the islands' most popular groups whose marks were instantly identifiable. In flipping, clicking, and digging through images of Kalapana for our forthcoming official reissue of their seminal 1975 debut, we've regularly come across this Kalapana "4k" design. It's a timeless stamp that many in Hawaii recognize and love. It's a classic design that deserves to be carried on into our present and future. Aloha Got Soul has been granted permission from Kalapana Music to product official Kalapana merchandise. We'll be kicking things off with a reprint...

We're kicking off a series of interviews today centered around the influence of Kalapana, Hawaii's seminal contemporary band from the 1970s.  Kalapana left an indelible mark on Hawaii's local music scene — not only did they set the bar high with their self-titled debut in 1975, the group shaped what became the sound of the islands at the time. Their sound was unique —a difficult to pinpoint mix of rock, jazz, soul, R&B and AOR — and it proved to locals that Hawaii too could have a world-class, trailblazing act borne of its people and places. With the help of music writer Jason...

We're proud to announce that an eclectic, electrifying mix of music made in Hawaii made it into Amazon Studios' 2021 series, I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Filming for the show began in January 2021, which is around when we caught wind of the project. From the outset, the show's music supervisor, Alison Rosenfeld-Moses expressed interest in showcasing new music and modern artists from Hawaii, with room for throwback and vintage tracks here and there. We recognized it as an exciting opportunity to help new sounds from the islands find its way into a production like this. Keep an ear out for Gordon Broad’s late 1960s ode to the Waikiki...

We’ve made it this far: 11 years later it’s 2021 and we recently opened a brick-and-mortar shop while surpassing 10k followers on Instagram. But, nothing is permanent. We want to take this moment to encourage you join our email mailing list and follow us on Bandcamp. They’re the surest ways of keeping in touch with the latest AGS updates, at least in this digital era.  If there’s anything we want to say about today’s outages across Instagram, Facebook, and all of its services, is that we’re grateful for all the connections we’ve made over the years, near and far, in-person...

This record changed Hawaii forever. Fronted by songwriters Mackey Feary and Malani Bilyeu, with guitarist DJ Pratt (who recently passed away... RIP) and keyboardist Kirk Thompson (of Lemuria legend), their debut shaped the sound of a contemporary Hawaii in the 1970s, a sound that is still embedded in our islands.To this day, the music of Kalapana defies categorization — is it jazz? rock? pop? R&B? — the band fills a space uniquely its own. Kalapana has always been difficult to define, especially their first album which remains the pinnacle of modern music from Hawaii. The band was so in tune...