Stories

I look fondly in anticipation any time we get to play tunes poolside at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. Regardless of the season, it's a warm and welcoming place to curate sounds for an audience content on relaxing by the water all day long. So when Ace hit us up to join dublab and Mr. Good Boy for a 3-day "Kyoto Weekender" at the hotel, we immediately said yes. Kyoto in the desert? Ace recently announced the opening of their first location in Japan: the Ace Hotel Kyoto. To celebrate, their Palm Springs location decided to dedicate a weekend...

The story of how Nick Kurosawa's debut EP came to fruition starts with our friendship growing around the same time Mori by Art+Flea organized their first big Tokyo-based market. In 2017, Nick and I first connected on the recommendation from Lei that we link up to do some gigs and collaborations together. She had showed me a YouTube video of Nick singing in a UH auditorium and instantly I was a fan. Soon we started gigging together at the Surfjack hotel regularly. Those Sunday brunch gigs were always pleasant, a little silly, and full of soulful, wonderful music whether coming...

Hawaii is one of the last places on Earth to ring in the new year (which means we get to watch the world's fireworks and celebrations online before enjoying our own). And while we really wanted to get this out to the world before 2019 was pau, we figured it'd be best to save it for the new year and start 2020 off with a bang. FRNT BZNZZ's new release is a surefire winner for radio and dance floors in 2020. Have a listen: Entitlement Issues by FRNTBZNZZ Not just another tender modern-boogie duet, “Was It Love” on the A-side...

Tender Leaf is another crazy rare, ridiculously expensive album from Hawaii's recent past. Record in the 1980s, the eponymous album is a breezy, sometimes psychedelic collection of songs about life, love, and the natural beauty of the Hawaiian Islands. To this day, the Tender Leaf LP remains one of the most coveted albums of recorded music from Hawaii. Tender Leaf formed in the 1980s when Murray Compoc and Darryl Valdez met while working as drivers of the city bus (TheBus). The two shared a love of music and soon started jamming together, eventually forming a band. Both Compoc and Valdez...

This one's been at least a year coming. Amidst all the projects Kit Ebersbach and I have going together (which started with recorded Nick Kurosawa's debut EP), Kit's been passing me new compositions he's been working on almost nightly for years. Earlier this year, we slipped his Moonbath album into the internet — hopefully you caught that one. (If not, there's always time to go back and dive in.) Now, we present perhaps Kit's most thought-provoking collection of music to date, Untilities. Untilities by Kit Ebersbach I know why Kit Ebersbach wanted to call this album Untilities. At least, let...