Order includes full digital album. 

Ea through Ea is an exploration of sovereignty through melody—a musical journey where ea carries its dual meaning: the breath of song and the enduring spirit of self-determination. Rooted in Hawaiian oli and expanded through contemporary classical and avant-garde Hawaiian music, this album honors the living continuum of ʻike, memory, and sound.

The project was born from Piano Ahiahi (Piano at Evening), a work inspired by an oli composed by Pālea of Kaʻū after his first encounter with the piano. In that chant, an unfamiliar instrument is welcomed through an ancestral voice. Drawing from the words preserved in The Echo of Our Song by Mary Kawena Pukui, Piano Ahiahi imagines the piano not as a foreign object, but as another vessel through which Hawaiian expression can live and grow. Here, the performer becomes both pianist and chanter, weaving voice and instrument into a single current of remembrance and renewal.

Building upon that foundation, Ea through Ea brings together celebrated mea olioli—including Kumu Hina, Kaumakaiwa Kanakaʻole, Hawane Rios, and myself—alongside remarkable kānaka maoli and diaspora musicians such as Nicholas Kaleikini, Makaʻala Perry-Tario, Kalia Vandever, and other collaborators. Together, these artists create a sound world where oli, composition, improvisation, and experimentation exist in conversation rather than opposition.

This album is a reminder that Hawaiian music has never been static. It has always adapted, listened, remembered, and transformed while remaining deeply rooted in its ancestral foundations. Ea through Ea asks how we carry the voices of our kūpuna into the sounds of today—not by leaving the past behind, but by allowing it to reverberate through every new melody.

Through ea, we find ea.

~T.J. Keanu Tario


T.J. Keanu Tario—piano, voice

Kaumakaiwa Kanakaʻole—voice
Makaʻala Perry—voice
Hāwane Rios—voice
Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu—voice

Nicholas Kaleikini—saxophone, ʻohe hano ihu
Kalia Vandever—trombone, electronics

Abe Lagrimas, Jr.—drums
Jonny Lam—upright bass
Kalama Pastor—ipu heke
Ahe Mālie (Maria Kaʻiulani, Moana Maeva & Kahula Pilialoha)—backing vocals

Produced by Dean Harada
Recorded by Jon Basebase and Dean Harada at Pacific Music Productions, Honolulu
Mix and additional instrumentation by Dean Harada at The Hamper, Kāneʻohe
Mastered by Stephan Wunderlich at Justified Noise, Los Angeles

Cover Art by Solomon Enos
Photography by Hōkūpaʻa Melim and Duke Kenney
Additional liner notes by Brandy Nālani McDougall
Design by Gina Borgia

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