Stories

“Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself. Change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you.” Charles Bukowski’s poem, No Leaders, Please, is the driving ethos behind saxophonist Jason Gay. Never still, Gay relentlessly explores the depths and exhausts every possibility of each musical rabbit hole he dives down. Born in Washington D.C. and landing in Hawaii during his service in U.S. Navy band, Gay leapt into the world of Chinese folk songs and its mainstay instruments, including the er-hu, pipa and guzheng. In the mid-2010s, Gay spent four years transcribing, imitating, assimilating, and innovating these sounds....

The news arrived yesterday afternoon that DJ Pratt, the founding guitarist of Kalapana, passed away suddenly. Long-time Kalapana member Gaylord Holomalia posted a photo on his Facebook page with the caption, "I Love You DJ".  We're not sure what to say, and even if we did, we wouldn't know how to say it. Although I didn't get a chance to meet DJ in person, I've known him as the quiet, driving force behind Kalapana, a behind-the-scenes kind of guy who makes things happen and gets things done.   In recent months, we've been revisiting Kalapana's catalog following our reissue of Mackey Feary's...

Releasing August 27, 2021, Island Vibes Island Vibes paints a meditative canvas of the Hawaiian Islands’ natural beauty. Merging the sounds of nature along with his resounding vibraphone, Arthur Lyman and producer Gordon Broad created an ambient-jazz-field recording album that exhibits the pure weightlessness of Lyman’s music and the tropical allure of Hawaii.  Originally recorded with Broad Records, who’s responsible for Phase 7’s Playtime and other important 1970s and 80s-era local records.At eight years old, Arthur Lyman's music was already being played in public spaces via a toy marimba performance on the radio. While Lyman laughed about the experience, he would continue performing...

Culled from compact discs spanning 1997 to 2009, our latest release (AGS-064) is an exhilarating collection of exotica instrumentals by Don Tiki, Honolulu's pioneers of the pseudo-Polynesian genre. Hot Like Lava by Don Tiki Led by Fluid Floyd (Lloyd Kandell) and Perry Coma (Kit Ebersbach), Don Tiki draws inspiration from the original masters of the exotica sound: Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and Les Baxter, to bring such evocative music into the 21st century. The group made its in 1997 with the album, The Forbidden Sounds of Don Tiki, featuring the legendary Martin Denny in what would become one of his final recordings...

Eleven years ago, this record changed my life. It entered my purview in high school four years earlier, but it wasn't until 2010 after graduating college that this album really made an impact.  Now, in 2021, it's getting fully reissued on Aloha Got Soul. After all these years of cherishing this record, I finally can proudly say (still with some disbelief) that AGS is reissuing this timeless album.  Digital drop on Bandcamp is slated for July 30th, 2021. Vinyl expected to arrive in mid- to late-August. We also did a handful of exclusive variants — check out this list:  Vinyl Me, Please sound waves Light...