Kaila Hawai'i

As we take a look back at 2009 and its own particular set of challenges, we are happy to see it fade off like the sunset taken above at Mākaha. But what to make of the year to come?

Sometimes, art, in its many different forms, has a way of capturing our outlook on life. Call it synchronicity if you wish, but that was just the case last week when we came across a particularly moving clip, “Dayvan Cowboy”, from one of our favorite electronic groups, Boards of Canada. Constructed from archive stock footage, the clip, directed by Melissa Olson, amazed us by the journey created through its sublime images: jumping from space through the atmosphere, just to catch the perfect wave. We love the sense of freedom the clip carries, all the while propelled by some deeply meditative beats. We can’t help but feel there are no real limits in life when you look at things in just the right light.

With this sense of boundless possibilities in mind, we wish you a safe, prosperous, and happy 2010 full of abundance and new discoveries.

Hau‘oli Makahiki Hou!

Kaila Hawai‘i Team

Tags: 2010, Boards of Canada, Dayvan Cowboy, Mākaha, New Year

Sometimes, it’s the small things that count, especially during the holidays. Take the Nuance Wine Finer, for instance. By far, it’s one of the best small presents we’ve ever received.

You simply slip the Wine Finer into the bottle of your choice to improve the flavor and bouquet of every glass. When you pour from the bottle, the wine is aerated. (This is similar to the more complicated decanting process but without the fancy carafe and candlelight.) By oxidizing the wine, you open up the inherent qualities in a wine, especially in a younger wine that has hadn’t the chance to mature. Moreover, even a commonly available wine can gain in taste with the Wine Finer. Anxious to try it out on Christmas night, we tried the Wine Finer on Coppola Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon and experienced a burst of red fruit flavor that we hadn’t tasted before with this particular cab.  And if you’d like to save the bottle for the next day, just slip the cap in, and the Wine Finer will keep your wine for the next day.

While aerating wine is generally recommended for red wines, we’ll follow the advice of New York Times critic Eric Asimov, who suggests that white wines can also gain in taste by some aeration. (We’re looking forward to the taste test.)

Even better, the Wine Finer is Danish in design, meaning you can appreciate its aesthetic qualities just as much as its function. (We personally think the matte silicone is ultra cool.)

The Nuance Wine Finer is currently available online  from Wine Enthusiast for $24.95.

Tags: Coppola Black Label, Danish design, Eric Asimov, New York Times, Nuance Wine Finer, wine

For someone who’s listenined to French music—or variété française, if you’d like the proper name—for nearly 15 years, I regret that I didn’t discover Jacques Dutronc earlier. Husband of the ever popular Françoise Hardy, the original yéyé girl from Paris, Dutronc holds a unique position in French popular music—irreverant and off-the-wall. The song that entirely caught me by the surprise was “Les gens sont fous, les temps sont flous” (People are crazy, the times are hazy). Just to confirm that nothing is indeed new, the combination of three-piece suit and freak beats brought to mind Beck circa 1990s, particularly “The New Pollution”. While Beck probably took after Dutronc’s British counterparts, the similarity of styling and performance attitude is interesting…

The original clip from French television in 1966:

Tags: Beck, Jacques Dutronc, Les gens sont fous, The New Polltion, yéyé

Just a brief note here, to avoid any further academic procrastination, but check out Kaila Hawai’i’s brand new station and online playlist on blip.fm. It’s a growing collection of the kind of music we like to live by: minimal electronica, groovy beats, a touch of World Music, a glass of variété française, and an occasional nod to Polynesia. Follow our new additions via Twitter.

Tags: blip.fm, Kaila Hawai'i, music, playlist

Just when I thought Sade was enjoying a far too early retirement, drinking champagne and listening to “Paradise”, I came across the happy news in the Twittersphere that Ms. Sade Adu–yes, she does have a last name–is back with a new album. Entitled Solder of Love, the album is slated for a global release on February 8, 2010. Not one to ignore visual signs, I find it curious that we see Ms. Adu facing what appears to be the Mayan pyramids. Could this perhaps be a subtle commentary on the growing 2012 anxiety and that perhaps love will be the way out? We’ll just have to wait until 2010 to find out for sure.

In the mean time, enjoy a listen to the first single, “Solder of Love”, in its entirety.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvDaJaU5My4]

Also, don’t miss the supahfly Sade mix by DJ Spinna on the Smoking Section, featuring classic tracks like “Feel No Pain”, “No Ordinary Love”, and “Smooth Operator”.

Tags: album release, Sade, Soldier of Love

Several holiday seasons ago, at a very different time in my life, I discovered Faye Wong, the Chinese pop singer. Wong’s first claim to fame in the West had come from her luminous performance in Wong Kar Wai’s nineties cult classic Chungking Express, which featured her cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams”.

In 2003, the year I started to listening to Wong, China had not yet exploded into the media. People still seemed to doubt that China would rise up as global player, leaving its culture still on the fringe. So, to find my first Faye Wong album, I ventured through Mott Street in New York’s Chinatown, purchasing what would become one of my favorite albums for years to come. The album was Jiang Ai, To Love, a mix of electronic sounds and breathy vocals. By far, the song that lingered in my head for months to come was “Bu Liu”, or “Not Leaving” (one of the several translations I’ve found for the title) – an ethereal ballad set against a wash of freshley chilled beats. For the many friends I’ve played it for, they are enchanted by the sound but rarely recognize that Faye is in fact singing in Mandarin. Thus,  “Bu Liu” has often been the first Chinese song they’ve ever heard,changing their preconceptions of contemporary sounds from the Middle Kingdom.

As the holidays come around again and a new decade approaches, I thought it’d be appropriate to take a listen to the elusive Ms. Wong once again. So far, Jiang Ai has been her last complete studio album to date. So here’s the clip for “Bu Liu”, elegantly simple in black and white with just an occasional flash of color, reminding us of the poetic power of a little wind blowing through the hair.

Tags: Bu Liu, China, electronica, Faye Wong, Jiang Ai, music video, To Love

You may perhaps call this an ultimate expression of dorkiness, but with the recent release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek on DVD, I have found myself wondering how to say some of the series classic lines ma ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. While this may seem entirely purposeless, one way that the Hawaiian language will survive centuries into the future is for it to embrace pop culture and therefore make it its own. Futhermore, let me add that after I caught a student-dubbed version of the 90s cult classic To Wong Foo earlier this year at UH-Mānoa, I can’t imagine Huaka‘i Hōkū, or Star Trek, would do any harm.

Of all Star Trek’s one liners, my favorite by far is Spock’s classic farewell greeting, “Live long and prosper”. As farewells go, it’s hard to be the positivity in this one, at least, in my opinion.

Going through the Hawaiian Dictionary, I thought the word pōmaika‘i would be best as it conveys multiple eyes I think Spock would approve of: “Good fortune, blessedness, blessing, profit, prosperity; prosperous, fortunate, beneficial, blessed, lucky; good luck, improvement (of property), welfare, benefits”.

It felt strange to just say “E ola loa a pōmaika‘i”. So I went ahead with “E ola loa me ka pōmaika‘i!”, which would reverse translate along the lines of “Live long with prosperity or good fortune”.

There is the secondary greeting that Star Trek’s Vulcans have used, probably not to sound redundant: “Peace and long life”. For this one, I went for a similar phrase as the one above: “E ola loa me ka maluhia.”

On a more humorous note, there is the plethora of Dr. Leonard McCoy’s “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a….”

I took the oft repeated “I’m a doctor, not an engineer”, an added a few emphatic phrases for extra oomph. What I arrived at was “Tsa! He kauka nō au! ‘A‘ole ho‘i au he wilikī!”

Of course, I am not a professional translator and my Hawaiian skills are not necessarily the best, so if you have a better translation, let me know. This is always something to pass onto the lexicon commitee!

Tags: Hawaiian language, J.J. Abrams, Karl Urban, Live Long and Prosper, Star Trek, translation, Zachary Quinto

Christmas is approaching, bringing with it an onslaught of overproduced holiday songs I’d rather not here. Couldn’t Western society just have stuck to madrigals, Gregorian chant, and plainsong to celebrate the season?

So, for some relief from the spirit of season, here’s one of our favorite tracks, “Hailing from the Edge” by German group electronic Apparat.  The especially sexy vocals are courtesy of Raz Ohara.

We had originally come across it when we caught a slick promo clip for Showtime, one of the few networks whose programs we watch.

Here’s the full song, though we’re not into the static, stock photo image.

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Tags: Apparat, electronica, Raz Ohara, Showtime, YouTube

Sometimes I find that I can only understand certain literature only after undergoing the same experience that it expresses. Such was case this week, which led me to look for solace in the poetry of Louise Labé (1524-1566), a female poet that wrote in 16th century Lyon. Very few English speakers, I can guess, have ever heard of Labé, also known as La Belle Cordière, which is, in the end, unfortunate. Labé was a remarkable woman of her times, profiting from the cultural crossroads that was Lyon during the Renaissance. She was well versed in the classics and multilingual. At the same she was also a skilled fencer and equestrian. While she was not hugely prolific, she composed a poetry of an emotional force and intensity that resonate still. This is especially the case of her sonnets. The focal point of her poetic production was nothing less than love, amorous relationships and the emotional maelstrom that arise from them. I find Labé particularly moving because she can delve straight into the whirlwind of passion and love’s pains without getting caught in a web of self-pity. Instead, it’s the poetic crystallization of an all too human experience.

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Tags: France, Louise Labé, love, Lunalilo, Lyon, poetry, Renaissance

A few weeks ago, I finally took a break from my typical weekend schedule of work, reading, writing, and more reading. When I used to be out in West O‘ahu and needed mental relief, I would head out at high speed on Farrington Highway to Keawa‘ula—commonly known as Yokohama—at the end of the road. There, in relative isolation and peace and quiet, I could watch the setting of the sun in the mythic landscape once walked by Kāne and Hi‘iakaikapoliopele. On a few lucky occasions, I was greeted by koholā, the whales, right at the time of sunset.

Now that I’m right in the middle of Honolulu, it’s a bit harder to find that kind of quiet escape. Luckily, on the day I went out to take a break, I arrived on a mellow day at Kaimana Beach, by the old natatorium and Kapi‘olani Park. The tradewinds, the Moa‘e, were blowing, rustling the leaves of the niu, the coconut trees. As sunset approached, the sky turned to a series of soft pinks and purples. The experience was simply transcendent.

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Tags: 'ehu ahiahi, Diamond Head, dusk, Hawaiian Mythology, Kaimana Beach, Kanaloa, Kāne, Kapua, O'ahu, Sans Souci, twilight