“Lost Oasis” by Little Kahuna

My friend Craig Skelly and his cohorts have given us a little gem of an album here that should appeal to fans of the surf and tiki genres, though this is neither a “typical” surf album (no pounding drums or heavy, loud reverb) nor a “typical” tiki one (I don’t recall hearing any tropical bird sounds). What does come across here, though, is Craig having fun exploring the niche he has created for himself wherein he utilizes subtler aspects of both genres, drawing from each of these influences to create a hybrid sound and style that is all his own.

I have no idea what his tiki influences were, but he did tell me that as a fan of the Belairs (my early ‘60s surf band), he regards us and early surf music in general as the foundation for his approach; with this he blends his own musical ideas, to create this “niche” of his that I alluded to above.

This is exactly what I have always hoped would be the kind of “legacy” that the Belairs would leave for future generations: not so much that contemporary bands would “copy” the sound we created, but rather that bands would develop new ideas incorporating what we were about… it goes back to the “trees and branches” principle; as the Belairs are at the root of the genre, I can enjoy it when a good “trad” band does a good job of replicating our root sound, but what I like most is to hear something (such as “Lost Oasis”) in which I can detect “echoes” of what we laid down all those years ago, along with some fresh new ideas, resulting in a new branch for the still-growing tree, rather than just another reiteration of the root.

Accordingly, I hope you will take what follows here not so much as a “criticism” of the points I will address about Craig’s work, but rather as a “description” of them (for reasons that should hopefully become clear as we proceed). For instance, on a first impression. the tunes do come across as what I’d call “samy;” that is, they all have about the same tempo and tone; not a lot of variety here, at least not in obvious ways; but before you take that as criticism, realize that this is meant to be descriptive of a higher quality that I detect here: in this project, Craig is focusing on a particular sound that he is exploring in depth; and thus, if you have ears to hear it, the “sameness” of the tunes speaks of that rather than of monotony.

Along these lines, I was also struck by another similarity between the tunes: even the phrasing of the melodies seems to share a common pattern… even though the various melodies are unique in the notes they employ, certain patterns in the phrasing are duplicated between one tune and the others. To get my meaning, listen through the album… this point becomes most evident upon hearing track 3, “Salt Air,” followed immediately by track 4, “Lonesome Trail.” Though the actual notes are different between the two, it’s hard to miss the “sameness” in their phrasing when heard close together like this. And I hear pieces of the same phrasing in some of the other tunes as well. Again, some might regard this as a flaw, but I would suggest that if you join me in seeing this CD as an “exploratory journey” of Craig’s on which we are invited to “ride along,” we will be able to see such points as assets rather than liabilities.

And speaking of assets, my final point of observation is to highlight a certain aspect of the overall sound that points to Craig’s unique style and to the album’s peculiar quality. My search for the best adjective to describe this quality brought to mind a track from an earlier release by “LK” titled “Stealthy Jaguar.” And I immediately decided that the word “stealthy” fits Craigs’ approach best of all the words I considered. You may ask, what’s that supposed to mean? What the heck is stealthy music? To which I respond, that’s very hard to describe; but once you hear it, you should catch my meaning…

I should add that Craig’s tunewriting here scores high marks, along with his guitar playing skills and the musicianship of his bandmates Mike Merrill (rhythm guitar), Alan Niizawa (bass) and Jeff Utterback (drums), along with some others.

So all in all, I have no problem recommending this album to you, especially if you keep in mind the provisos I have laid out for you here….

Craig Skelly

Little Kahuna
www.littlekahunamusic.com
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