I almost hate to share this compilation dubbed Lover’s Hawaii not because I’m not eternally grateful for Francis, sometime Fond/Sound guest contributor, for sharing/finding it with me, but because there is scant/to no information out there about the release itself. In my opinion, such a gorgeous collection of neo-Resort Music (if I may so dub it) beckons a deeper dive than what I’ll give it…yet, maybe it doesn’t. Who knows? I can also see how the artists who contributed to its making likely would have preferred we enjoy it without such albatrosses hanging on our necks. So, let’s see what I can share.
I think, you can never quite share a Japanese album highlighting the music of Hawaii, or the influence of that island, without sharing Japan’s historical ties to it. How else can I try to explain what you’ll hear in this collection of Hawaii-inspired Japanese ambient music dubbed Lover’s Hawaii?
If you’ve heard or encountered the music of Haruomi Hosono, Kyozo Nishioka, Sandii, and countless other Japanese artists, you’re probably able to sense a distinct connection to Hawaii. Long before this music existed, historically, Japanese people compromised a large class of visitors, workers, and residents. In the beginning, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, as they transitioned from local laborers to full-blown residents, the culture of Hawaii (as the culture of Japan) began to develop distinct fusions from both societies. You name it: food, fashion, idioms, and traditions intermingling as their courses would deviate and rejoin through various points in political and societal changes.
Hawaii itself, to this day, retains its separate connection with the Japanese. The appeal of its wonderful weather, its endless summers, and proximity makes it so that Hawaii itself is still regarded as Hawaiian first…then American somewhere far in the distant. I mean, it’s the reason this music exists.
Long before Japanese even fathomed about visiting California, Europe or elsewhere, that island paradise a boat ride or flight away seemed far more realistic for any lay person to attain (or save up money or time for). After their meeting with Commodore Matthew Perry and their readmission to its worldly political sphere through the tandem of General Marshall and Eisenhower, it was always Hawaii that Japan’s tension with its immediate connection to the rest of the world turned to first. So, you can imagine how this music created by the second or first generation of Japanese removed from the heavier baggage of all this history might try to draw a different kind of enjoyment from this Pacific partner.
You hear it in Saeko Suzuki’s wonderful contributions to the compilation — one a dreamy reimagining of Max Steiner’s ‘50s schmaltz standard, “Blue Hawaii”, and the other two, two originals, “Starfish Chronicle” and “Indian Summer”, uniting all sorts of West Coast Baroque Beach Pop touches with her unique electro-tinged avant pop. The timing of its release, in 1995, touched on a retro fad aimed at reintroducing the concept of “resort music” to a younger generation raised on MTV, Nintendo, and other modern instant media. The Hawaii imagined here would never be as hockey or divorced from the reality, here the island paradise took on a spectral quality. It was the Hawaii of their honeymoon. It was the Hawaii of their family trip. It was that island music softly playing in the background of their favorite Tiki joint or at the home of their friend.
A gifted slack key guitar player Hideki Okada would add to this collection perhaps its most intimate connection to the island itself. Over a downtempo beat played by Rieko Terimoto and Wai Kei and some island field recordings, Hideki would hit on all the floaty bits that make Hawaiian music so singular.
Wai Kei (or Utena) touched on two pitch perfect reimaginings of standards that get the “sunset” treatment in ways that sound far more retro-futuristic that they let on. Songs like “There’s a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)” from Herman’s Hermits and their interpretation of Elvis’s “Blue Hawaii” sound and are sung in haunting ways that add genuine pathos to songs that seem like rote nostalgia by now for far too many. Drifting to music like this now seems to gain another level above the ground when your head is stuck in the clouds.
As you hear island atmosphere come through in reggae-tinged songs by Afrika’s Takefumi Haketa or in the rollicking contributions by Hiroyasu Yaguchi and in “Dogs Under Pressure On the Beach” by The Beach Ball Enemies (the nom de plume by one Thrash of The Orb), one can’t help but wonder why the mainland’s connection to the island sometimes fail to capture the gradients of mystery behind the locale. Behind every hazy sunset and endless summer, there is a foreground of shadows moving at their own pace, creating the rich canvas filling our memories. Collectively we might not all be able to get there in these weird times but music (as always) just has a way of transporting you…if not just for an “Indian summer” of the mind and spirit.