Stories

Procured from two reels belonging to Mike Kahikina, these songs were part of the sessions that Kahikina and his band Ka‘ala recorded some 40+ years ago. In 1983, two of the songs here released on Protea Records as a 7-inch single: "Ocean Rider" and "Show Me". When we restored the tapes with the help of audio engineer Jessica Thompson, we found three different versions of "Ocean Rider". There were also two versions of "I Am A Native", both of which could easily serve as long-lost anthems, speaking just as powerfully today as they did when Kahikina and Ka‘ala first committed...

Few if any copies of The New World, Volume 1 have surfaced since I first became aware of the LP thanks to Oliver Seguin. Before the label took shape in 2015, I'd seen (heard, rather) Oliver play the cuts "Soul Catchers" and "Such A Lovely Garden" only a handful of times (they're not necessarily DJ-friendly tracks, but rather for deeper listening sessions, so it wasn't often that he'd bring his copy to a gig).  Looking through my notes and old emails, I had first reached out to one of the members of East Of Midnight, Liz Hahn (formerly Haberman), in 2014 —...

Mark your calendars:Mike Lundy returns to the stage with his first live performance in six years, with a double headliner featuring Maryanne Ito. The event is free and family friendly — held on Friday, February 16th at the Capitol Modern in downtown Honolulu, from 6pm to 9pm.Yes—Mike Lundy, LIVE! 🎉And—with Maryanne Ito! 🥳 Joining Mike Lundy's band is Joelene, whose latest release on AGS is a collab 7-inch with Your Song Is Good. She'll provide the backing vocals on several of Mike's standout originals. Maryanne Ito's backing band includes two musicians from her Live At The Atherton album: Dae Han and...

The idea for this release came about when we started discussing plans for the 2023 edition of Soul Time in Tokyo. Back in 2018, we collaborated with Jun Saito, bandleader of the Tokyo-based group YOUR SONG IS GOOD, on a 12-inch release featuring their band and a local Hawaii singer, Nick Kurosawa. The idea then was to cover a "classic" Hawaii rare groove release — and what came to mind first was Babadu, one of the holy grails of Hawaiian soul.  The resulting 12-inch sold quickly. It featured a vocal version with Nick Kurosawa, and an instrumental version with Tokyo's VIDEOTAPEMUSIC, as well...

It feels as if it's been quite some time since we released a new music project. After reissuing two timelss albums from Kalapana's early days, followed by a collaboration with the legendary Brother Noland, we're decidedly taking a break from the spotlight-filled stage of classic local music to focus on our roots: bringing attention to lesser known, often under-represented artists in these islands.  Max High is a multi-instrumentalist of Japanese-Filipino-French descent, currently living and working on Oahu. He moved to the islands in 2021, and has since called Honolulu his home. Each year since the pandemic, Max has used his ongoing Recordings series as a process of...