San Francisco-based shoegaze act Tamaryn has swept us away with their first full-length studio release The Waves. Think of it as a Mazzy Star redux but with more drive and rhythm. To get a better idea, check out the single “Love Fade”, a sweeping post-rock romance in a wash of guitars. [Free download link courtesy of RCRD LBL below.]

Washed Out is a one-man ensemble by up-and-coming musician Ernest Green, who hails from Georgia. (Yes, we wouldn’t have thought Southern boys like electronics, but we’re glad  to be proven wrong.)   This track “Feel It All Around” is a perfect soundtrack for hot summer weather and cooling off in the water… or with liquid refreshments. The appropriately directed clip was produced by Fiction.

DETAILS

“Feel It All Around” is off Washed Out’s Life of Lesiure EP now available on iTunes and Amazon.

Mr. Green has quite a groovy photo blog along with a MySpace music page, which features the great non-EP track “You and I,” replete with old-school but tastefully subtle Madonna sample. We spotted other current fav, Toro Y Moi, who we’ve been listening to on our blip.fm station.

LISTEN MORE

“Future Days” is off Society’s 4-track EP The Rules of Attraction, currently available on iTunes and Amazon.

I was reminded how much I love Montréal by the new video “Yellowbrite Smile” from Israeli-South African singer Yoav. It’s a journey through the city’s streets and network of underground tunnels… but backwards, with what seems to be stop-start photography, slightly dizzying visual effects, and a jaunt through the California desert. The track is off Yoav’s second studio release, entitled A Foolproof Escape Plan.

MORE ON YOAV

Yoav’s first studio release Charmed and Strange was released in 2008, gaining recognition in Russia (a #1 single), continental Europe, and Canada. Despite his electronic-like sound, Yoav makes most of his music off  his Lowden acoustic guitar. The lean and mean “Club Thing” shows all the things one can with just one guitar and a little equipment.

YOAV ONLINE

Follow Yoav as he promotes A Foolproof Escape Plan on his official website, www.yoavmusic.com. The album is already out in Canada, and a worldwide release is just around the corner. (Sorry, it’s only an import in the States for now.)

“Kareho Koe”, the new clip from Tikahiri’s new album Merahi Kerekere, is finally up on YouTube in high resolution. Its dark, gothic atmosphere and slick production make it one of the more original clips out of Tahiti and French Polynesia to date.

Like Tikahiri’s video debut “Tapea te paari”, the band maintains its special brand of smoldering and brooding. But on this occasion, a female element appears as a mysterious woman who seems to lure one of the men into her grasp during the darkness of the night. Unfortunately, you need to speak pa’umotu (the language of the Tuamotu Archipelgo) to get the complete meaning of the song, and, alas, no translations have appeared yet. Somehow, I think you can get the song’s jist just by watching.

More Tikahiri on Kaila Hawai’i:

• Polynesian Gothic: Tikahiri’s back with new album & clip
• Tātau and leather – “Tapea te paari”, Tikahiri’s debut clip
• Polyneisan Paradoxes: Tikahiri

LISTEN TO TIKAHIRI’S MERAHI KEREKERE

Tikahiri, my favorite Pa’umotu goth band – and perhaps the only Pa’umoth goth band that ever will exist – is about to release their second studio album dubbed Merahi Kerekere. According to the band’s Facebook page, the discs are sous douane, which I’m liberally interpreting as “stuck in customs”. Luckily, three tracks are already up for listening on Reverb Nation. Two  of the  tracks (“A Tauahi Mai” and “Kareho Koe”) are in Pa’umotu, the language of the Tuamotu archipelago where lead members Aroma and Mano Salmon grew up. The other  (“Falling in Love”) is in English. (Note: no tracks in French, so Tikahiri’s right on par with indie bands in France métropolitaine.)

I must say that Tikahiri in English feels different than Tikahiri in a Polynesian language. The latter feels breezy and fresh, even in its darker moments, sounding as if it is out of 21st century Tahiti where the band lives and records. Tikahiri in English, on the other hand, tends to transport me to L.A. somewhere in the 80s – a curious, though not unpleasant, experience, to say the least.

Linguistic matters aside, Tikahiri seems to be following in the tracks of their debut Tamaki Hope’a, as they remain faithful to their acoustic aesthetic all the while developing it further. As if taken out of some modernist composition, the cellos riffs that open “Falling in Love”, for instance, add a sense of urgency unheard on their debut.

Until Merahi Kerekere is finally released and, hopefully, on iTunes for easy download, I suggest checking out the clip of the making of “Kareho Koe” up on the Facebook page as well. You get to follow band, crew, and, of course, attractive young female model up to the mountains outside of Pape’ete for a late night shoot. I must say that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Polynesian man rock a goth look with black lipstick and vintage military jackets, all the while retaining the testosterone factor. (Of course, many of us have seen a few with significantly brighter shades of lipstick, but that’s a different experience altogether that one should be in the mood for.)

Tikahiri is…

• Aroma Salmon – Vocals, Guitar
• Simon Pillard – Cello
• Stephane Rossoni – Drums
• Mano Salmon – Vocals, Bass

New songs on Merahi Kerekere

If I’m guess right from my Hawaiian and basic Tahitian, tupapaku is pa’umotu for “corpse”. So going off the track names,  you have a gothic medley of love, life, and death… and whatever track nine is about.

1. Kareho Koe
2. Falling in Love
3. A Tauahi Mai
4. Beautiful Lady
5. Merahi Kerekere
6. Tupapaku
7. In Love
8. You Make My Life
9. Penetration
10. Take Me Away
11. Beyond Reach

More of Tikahiri on Kaila Hawaiʻi

• Tātau and leather – “Tapea te paari”, Tikahiri’s debut clip
• Polyneisan Paradoxes: Tikahiri

Sources

• Tikahiri’s Facebook page

UPDATE

Merahi Kerekere is now available in the United States for digital download via iTunes and Amazon.

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”.

I’ve been hooked to Māori spin doctor Tiki Taane since I first caught a glimpse of his mindblowing video clip “Tangaroa”, off his debut album album Past, Present, Future. For those unfamiliar with Polynesian mythology, Tangaroa is the Māori god of the sea, corresponding to the Hawaiian akua Kanaloa. The track is a shock to the system, combing traditional Māori chant with a raging dancehall-style beat.

Tiki composed “Tangaroa” in response to the 2004 tsunami and humanity’s lack respect for Tangaroa and his ocean realm. In their first collaboration as father son, Uekaha Taane Tinorau, Tiki’s father, composed the following haka, or chant, for Tangaroa, channeling the spirit of Tangaroa as a force for change. (You can read Tiki and Uekaha’s full commentary on “Tangaroa” here on the Tikidub Productions website.)

Ko Papatuanuku me Ranginui nga matua o te ao
I puta mai nga tamariki nga Atua o te ao
He Atua o te moana
Ko Tangaroa he Atua o te moana
Tu mai te ihi
Tu mai te wehiwehi
Tu mai te wanawana e
Hi ha aue

From the divine heartbeat of Mother Earth and the ever-elusive constant of Sky Father
all descend and all ascend the natural world
The timeless current of tranquil stillness
the harmonic music of ones infinite ocean
Resilient are the vital influences of the universe
Stand liberated by the inner radiance
Be still be silent and all shall be revealed

Na Uekaha nga kupu Maori, na Tamiaho te whakapakehatia

Te Moananui aa Kiwa (The Great Ocean of Kiwa), Kanaloa Series by Māori artist Rua Pick

As someone who’s felt a close kinship to the moana, or the ocean, and to Kanaloa, I felt something deep and familiar when I saw “Tangaroa” for the first time. When it seemed so few remembered to honor our god of the sea, here was an homage to the God of the Sea appropriate for our time but based on the past, modern yet grounded in antiquity. In the video, Tiki looks out in the ocean only to see an ancestor appear to him on the shore. How times have I sat facing the sea or going into waves and felt something great, vast, and powerful, beyond the limits of my rational, Western education, knowing that generations past were with me in the waters.

I know that Kanaloa, our manifestation of the ocean deity in Hawai‘i, is alive. I’m always reminded of him when I see the expanse of blue ocean, hear the roar of the surf, or see his kinolau, or body form, such as the mai‘a (banana), the he‘e (squid or octopus), the koholā (whale) and other forms of ocean life.

FOR MORE INORMATION ON KANALOA/TANGAROA

Learn more about Kanaloa/Tangaroa on Blue Coast’s Kanaloa page or in Martha Beckwiths’s Hawaiian Mythology. For more on Tangaroa, Te Ara Encylopedia of New Zealand has developed a beautiful web page, Tangaroa – The Sea.

FOR MORE ON TIKI TAANE

“Tangaroa” was the first single off of Tiki’s debut Past, Present, Future, which you can purchase at the Tikidub shop as a digital download or CD, shipped directly from Aotearoa/New Zealand to you.

We’re enjoying the sounds of Thievery Corporation’s on their latest release, Radio Retaliation. We’ve been fans for a decade now, and the disc is a real standout. It’s one of the rare instances—at least, as we far back as we can remember—where downtempo chill has managed to successfully take on political commentary (just take a listen to “The Numbers Game” or “33^rd Degree”). But our favorite track is perhaps the least political (instrumentals aside, of course). “Sweet Tides”, with vocals courtesy of Loulou, is one of those songs that make for a perfect dreamy interlude, a little cinematic moment for us to lose ourselves. We  like to think of it as an updated companion piece for Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You”. Interestingly enough, the videos are similar with their roadtrip theme, despite being made over a decade apart. ( Compare the two for yourself below.) Both songs are already on our summer playlist for drives down to Keawa‘ula or around Makapu‘u.

Thievery Corporation with Loulou – “Sweet Tides”

(The oversized sunglasses and the dreamcatcher hanging in the car are great touches.)

Mazzy Star – “Fade into You”

(Notice similar theme of solitary woman in an arid landscape, vintage car on a deserted highway and big glasses.)

Thievery Corporation’s “Sweet Tides”  from Radio Retaliation is available on iTunes.

Kahi (The Place): Tahiti, Te Ao Ma’ohi/French Polynesia

Think of music from Tahiti, and you’ll think of the gentle sway of the ‘aparima or the pulsing, multi-layered rhythms for an ‘ote’a. But the music of our cousins to the south goes beyond the melodies of the Heiva. Take an act like Tikahiri,fronted by brothers Aroma and Mano Salmon–who also run a tattoo shop in downtown Pape’ete. For this part of Polynesia, the band is rather unique. (We can’t  forget to mention, though, the ma’ohi rock band Manahune.) Live or on their studio album, Tamaki Hope`a, Tikahiri’s arrangements are deceptively simple (bass, guitar, drums, cello) but full of sound, emanating a complex, brooding personality one wouldn’t necessary expect from islands in the sun.

But look past the sunny surface of the Pacific archipelagos of Te Ao Ma’ohi/French Polynesia and you’ll discover another face. In an interview on the French network France O, Aroma says their music is a paradox, like life in the Tuamotus, the low-lying atolls northeast of Tahiti where they grew up. A storm can destroy eveything one day . Then the sun can return the next. This inherent contradiction gives Tikahiri’s music a darker–dare I say, gothic-edge, a adrenalin-rush unexpected from what’s basically an acoustic band. The name Tikahiri itself means “blood” or “life” in pa`umotu.  Add to this that the brothers sing in pa’umotu and English (they spent part of their childhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand), setting them apart from a scene mainly in Tahitian and French.  In any case, Tikahiri’s popularity is growing. The band performed at the Francopholies in La Rochelle in the summer of 2008 and just finished their first video this spring. (Check out the report in Les Nouvelles de Tahiti - In French)

Tikahiri performing “Heva Koe” on Fenua Live on TNTV

A special feature on Tikahiri from 9 semaines et 1 jour from France O (In French)
Closes with live performance of “Tape’a Te Pa’ari”

[Info/Photo Source: Les Nouvelles de Tahiti]

Tikahiri - Tamaki Hope'a