You've been waiting forever / but you can make ever wait for you.

December 12, 2012 5:58 AM

The cryptic album Hawaii: Part II has finally been released after a months-long mystery, and it sounds like a mix between Katamari Damacy and early 20th century pop. Includes chiptune rapping, time travel, and the Erlking of German folklore. A bonus track, Variations on a Cloud, is also worth a listen.
posted by Rory Marinich (8 comments total)

Also worth pointing out: Variations on a Cloud, linked above, lifts themes and melodies from the other songs on this album, but also from the Tally Hall song Ruler of Everything. And The Mind Electric (warning: whole song plays backwards before playing the right way around) lifts its melody from Inside the Mind of Simon, a much older song.

The songs on HPII do more than lift melody, though: there are a lot of puns off the original lyrics. For instance, Ruler of Everything has a passage that goes like this:

Do you like how I walk?
Do you like how I talk?
Do you like how my face
Disintegrates into chalk?

I have a wonderful wife
I have a powerful job
She criticizes me for being egocentric

Which is mirrored in Variations on a Cloud as:

Do you like how I walk?
Do you like how I talk?
Do you like how my face has learned to tick like a clock?

I have a wonderful life
I know a powerful Bob
He eulogizes me for being geocentric

It is a very, very silly album.
posted by Rory Marinich at 6:38 AM on December 12, 2012

I've never heard of Tally Hall before this post (here's their wiki page for other uninformed folks like me) . That said, this album is pretty great. Yes at times silly, at other times wonderful, but overall I'm really impressed by their melodic and harmonic sensibilities. Very cool stuff. I think they just gained a new fan.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:47 AM on December 12, 2012

This is... really good. I have no idea what's going on with it, but I'm enjoying it.
posted by cthuljew at 8:32 AM on December 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Not complaining about the post, but I feel like maybe I'm missing something. It's just a record released by a band from Michigan? I read the wikipedia page and the "months long mystery" link but I don't get why this album is worthy of a FPP.
posted by shoepal at 11:15 AM on December 12, 2012

It's an album released by one of the guys in Rory Marinich's favorite band. It's a big deal, yo. (I'm four songs in and it's rather enchanting.)
posted by carsonb at 11:33 AM on December 12, 2012

I shared it because I think it's fantastic music. The "mystery", I felt, was an interesting context, because the album itself is very weird. Like, all the pieces of it are great, but song after song gave me a feeling of, "Well, I didn't see that coming."
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:00 PM on December 12, 2012

Was that Inara George on "Black Rainbows"? Or someone doing a not at all bad Inara George imitation?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:23 PM on December 12, 2012

@rory Ok. Cool. I just thought maybe there was something *more* that I was somehow missing. Always happy to hear new music, mysterious or not. Thanks for sharing!
posted by shoepal at 3:02 PM on December 12, 2012