HULU Lindsey's debut release, "Ku'u Makana Aloha," is one the best Hawaiian albums to appear so far this year. She sings beautifully.
The album opens strong and beautiful with "Kahulumealani," a new old-style, hapa-haole gem by producer Kenneth Makuakane. Lindsey's voice sails gloriously over a crisp and clean arrangement. Call this one perfect!
Traditionalist selections provide subsequent highlights. Lindsey's renditions of "Po La'ila'i," "Mele No Ka Lau La'i," " 'Olu O Pu'ulani" and "Aliamanu Hula" will certainly delight fans of Hawaiian music worldwide. Guest vocals by the Makaha Sons makes "Lahela Ku'u Poki'i" memorable as well; the guys support Lindsey's performance without diluting it.
Three English-language pop songs were presumably included for the sake of variety; doing that, and adding heavy synth-string tracks to "'O 'Oe Mau Me A'u," are two questionable decisions made by Lindsey and Makuakane. Elsewhere, Makuakane keeps the use of synthetic strings pretty much in check.
The album art is beautiful and the annotation excellent. Song lyrics and English translations are included; Loyal Garner's liner notes concisely explain Lindsey's significance as a singer in the tradition of Lena Machado and Leina'ala Haili.
HEARD one Kaleo O Kalani album and you think you've heard 'em all, right?
Smooth harmonies, languid arrangements, selections ranging from Latin to Hawaiian to oldies and an excessive use of vapid synthetic string section effects ... sound familiar?
Kaleo O Kalani's latest album is a bit more than that.
The trio - Rachel Asebido, Bobbee English and Gwen Gusman - signed on Wendell Ching, Steve Lincoln and Marvic Esquibel to back them instrumentally and help out with the arrangements. The studio sextet maintains the familiar KOK sound, but the synthetics are a bit lusher and better textured.
KOK's musical horizons remain as broad as ever. A pair of Hawaiian-language songs are the highlights.
The title revives the 1982 fluke hit by one-name artist Charlene. Another pop chart remake is "Oh Me Oh Me (I'm A Fool For You Baby)," a modest hit for Lulu in 1969. "Go Away Little Boy," swaps genders on a song that hit No. 1 for Steve Lawrence in 1962 (Lawrence was close to 30 when he told the "little girl" to go away).
The sextet also offers a fresh take on "I Do Love You" by slipping a few lines from "I'll Try Something New" by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. "Quando Calienta El Sol" come out as the most appealing of the mainstream selections.
Kaleo O Kalani failed to include translations for the two Hawaiian songs that highlight the album, but Asebido's homespun liner notes summarize the trio's love of music and reveal that she wrote one of the Hawaiian songs ("Ku'ualoha Likolehua"). The other, "Honaunau Paka," is credited to English's grandmother.