Kupaoa’s new album highlights band’s many talents

“Ho‘okele”

Kupaoa

(Hulu Kupuna Productions, HK 0501)

In the eight years since the release of their debut album, “Pili o ke Ao,” Kellen Paik and Kelikolihau Hannahs Paik have become one of the power duos in contemporary Hawaiian music. Their contributions include not only their work as recording artists, but also as songwriters, record producers, annotators and researchers. “Ho‘okele,” released in September, makes fresh contributions in all those areas.

Four of the 13 songs are their work — some written by Kellen, others by Lihau, and two that they wrote together. The duo also puts their stamp on compositions by other writers — Kalakaua, Leleiohoku, Lili‘uokalani, Dennis Kamakahi and Puakea Nogelmeier. The breadth of Kupaoa’s musical horizons is seen in their remake of Vince Gill’s Grammy-winning country hit, “Go Rest High on That Mountain.”

One of the tragedies of Hawaiian music is that many songs that were written in the 19th century exist today only as lyrics; the lyrics were written down, but the melodies were entrusted to memory, and with the death of those who knew the melodies, that knowledge was lost. In some cases researchers are able to find lost melodies; otherwise, the orphan lyrics can be brought back to life with newly written melodies. Kupaoa does that with “Water Lily,” a song whose lyrics date from the early 1890s.

Kupaoa includes information for the album — Hawaiian lyrics, English translations and cultural background — in a beautifully illustrated booklet.

Visit kupaoa.com.

“Stay Gold”

Stef Mariani

(no label, no serial number)

Inspirational music always has an audience. It’s a natural fact of life that for each person who feels like they’re on top of the world with everything going their way, there are several others who are struggling to find reasons to go on living. Singer-songwriter Stef “Stefmuzik” Mariani reached out to all those unhappy people with her new download-only single, “Stay Gold.”

Singing with gentle forcefulness, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, Mariani encourages a “beautiful friend of mine” to “stay gold” by maintaining a sense of optimism and wonder. She adds that if they “stay gold,” she’ll stay with them — and that she’ll “stay gold,” too.

Mariani sings with a depth of emotion that suggests she is writing from personal experience. If so, here’s hoping that the people who inspired her to write the song are “gold” today.

Visit stefmuzic.com.