Hawaii: Part II

Hawaii: Part II
Studio Album
Released	2012
Length	45:27
Label	Independent, VinylLuxe (2023)
Producer	Ross Federman, Joe Hawley, Bora Karaca

Hawaii: Part II is an album by ミラクルミュージカル (Also known by it's English translation: Miracle Musical). The album was released independently on 12/12/12, at 12:12:12 A.M. Four members of Tally Hall appear on this album: Joe Hawley, Ross Federman, Rob Cantor, and Zubin Sedghi. Bora Karaca also appears. The album is categorised under "World" music on iTunes, and Bandcamp however the whole album shifts between genres, including pop, rap, and ballads.

Guest and supporting artists include Lindsey Alvarez, Ryan Brady, Joel J. Dahl, Madi Diaz, Allison Hanna, Gregory James Jenkins, Charlene Kaye, Stephanie Koenig, Andrew Kurtz, Shane Maux, Adrianne Nigg, Ashley Renee, Stephan Wunderlich.

On May 19th, 2014, an album of demos, outtakes, and instrumentals of Hawaii: Part II was digitally released through Bandcamp, entitled: Hawaii: Part II: Part ii. Later on December 31st, 2015, ミラクルミュージカル released Hawaii Partii, an album of instrumental 8-bit style chiptunes based on Hawaii: Part II

Conception

In an interview with local access show 'band.', Joe talks about his love for musicals, and recalls:

"When our family went to Hawaii in the summer of 1997, I heard this music in my mind and I knew I had to make it at some point"

He goes on to talk about how he didn't know what to call this musical project, or for it to be about himself.

Part of Joe's inspiration for Hawaii: Part II was a book titled "The Secrets and Mysteries of Hawaii: A Call to the Soul" by William Chiles, released in 1995. He found it in a bookstore around 2008, when friend Ricky Lax released his first book Lawyer Boy. Joe saw a diagram of a stellated octahedron and felt it had a connection to the Hawaiian-esque melody he had in his head since 1997.

Production And Recording

On 12th December 2017, 5 years after Hawaii: Part II was released, Ross Federman made a post on his facebook page talking about the album's conception and recording process:

"Today marks the five year anniversary of an album that I worked very hard on and am frankly quite proud of. Hawaii: Part II was the vision of Joe Hawley and the product of countless other musicians, singers, arrangers, and writers. Joe Hawley, Bora Karaca and I coordinated the recording, production, and mixing of this album which was no small feat. Having more than 30 artists, many recording parts on their own and submitting individual vocal or instrumental tracks, pushed our organizational skills to their limits. It is also noteworthy that I did not see Joe or Bora face-to-face throughout any of this process. My personal goal in this was to help create a record with “a life of its own.” I’ve always felt that some of the best albums never sound quite the same to you, even after countless listens. I feel as if the album is continuing to grow while it rests idly on the shelf (or your hard drive, or somewhere in the cloud) and that every listen through is a little window into its current time. Of course it’s the listener growing and changing, but I think it takes a certain kind of record to track along with its listener in this way. I set out to fill this album with as much emotion and vitality as I could from my humble remote mixing station. In the end, I feel that we did create an album with a life of its own and one that speaks for itself. Week after week, it continues to find new homes in the ears of eager discoverers, despite a total lack of promotion. It’s certainly not normal, and it’s probably like nothing you’ve ever heard, but it is still very much alive to this day. I can’t thank the rest of the Miracle Musical team, and Joe and Bora enough for the work that went into this. Happy fifth Birthday Hawaii: Part II."

- Ross Federman, Facebook

When asked, on the 2018 Reddit AMA, about the process of collaborating with so many people remotely, Bora answered: "It was magical because it was my first time doing something like that. People who would happen to be in town in Los Angeles would just swing by, pop in, and put their little piece in. This is now the way I want to do things, personally!"
- Bora Karaca

Release

Hawaii: Part II was originally made available digitally at hawaiipartii.bandcamp.com on 12/12/12. In 2013, the album was made available on iTunes, and other streaming services.
In the same year, A postcard for Hawaii: Part II was released, which contained a hand-written note, and a bandcamp download code for the album, as well as a download code for Variations On A Cloud
Sometime after 2013, the bandcamp was moved to miraclemusical.bandcamp.com

In 2015, a limited number of official Hawaii Part II CDs were given away and sold either via donations to the Hawaii Part II website, or if a user paid more than the regular amount for an album on the Bandcamp page. There are 2 versions of the Hawaii Part II CD: a black-top, and a white-top version. The black-top version was shown on Joe Hawley's Instagram page on June 16th, 2015. These black-top versions are referred to as "promo" copies, with very few being known to exist. The white-top versions were sent out in brown paper envelopes, encribed with a secret message on the back in invisible ink.

On September 18th, 2018 a Kickstarter was launched in an attempt to get the album pressed to vinyl. On October 18th, exactly a month later, the campaign reached its goal, as 456 backers pledged $16,544 of it's $7000 goal.
A second pressing was made available in January 2020 on annarbortees.com The first pressing of the vinyl is clear, and the second is black.
A third pressing of the album was confirmed in 2022 on Joe Hawley's YouTube channel. and was released on January 27th, 2023 through vinylluxe.com, with it being limited to 1000 copies and brown colored. A second batch of the vinyl and a CD release were confirmed two days later on the Miracle Musical twitter account, and was released on February 17th, 2023. This time, on a website made by ミラクルミュージカル themselves as a bundle limited to 100 copies which included the brown edition of the vinyl and a hoodie of your choice. A third (and possibly final) drop was done on March 3rd, 2023, this time, including two variations of Hawaii: Part II ("Sand" Variant , which was a tan yellow color and "Cloud" Variant , which was a grey color. It also included a repress of the Variations On A Cloud EP . All of them were limited to 1500 copies.

2023 2xCD of Hawaii: Part II

On December 12th 2022, the official ミラクルミュージカル Twitter account confirmed the design and tracklisting of a new 2xCD physical release of Hawaii: Part II. The cover makes use of lenticular printing, with the covers to both the original album and compilation album "Hawaii: Part II Part ii" as each image, and the tracklist includes the instrumentals to the album and Variations On A Cloud on a secondary disc. This CD release was put on sale on August 28th, 2023, and came with a 16-page booklet. As of 2024, this version of the CD has been sold out on the official Miracle Musical shop.

Reception

Upon it's release Hidden In The Sand's founder Coz Baldwin, had given praise to the album before even finishing it, saying "I’m barely halfway through it and it’s seriously breathtaking." Talon Boudreaux of The Paper Wolf praised the album calling it "Unique and artistic" Ace Richards of KP Times praised the through narrative of the album, saying: "While the music in "Hawaii: Part II is really well crafted and creatve, the real star in this album is the story".

Track listing

#	Title	Writers	Lead Singers	Duration
1.	"Introduction To The Snow"	Hawley	Hawley	1:41
2.	"Isle Unto Thyself"	Hawley	Hawley	3:47
3.	"Black Rainbows"	Federman (music only), Hawley	Madi Diaz, Hawley	2:30
4.	"White Ball"	Hawley, Karaca (music only), Sedghi	Sedghi, Stephanie Koenig	3:35
5.	"Murders"	Hawley	Hawley	3:43
6.	"Space Station Level 7 (宇宙ステーションのレベル7)"	Hawley, Karaca (lyrics only)	Karaca	3:23
7.	"The Mind Electric"	Hawley	Hawley	6:13
8.	"Labyrinth"	Hawley (music only), Shane Maux (lyrics only), Charlene Kaye (lyrics only)	Maux, Kaye	2:33
9.	"Time Machine"	Cantor, Hawley	Cantor, Hawley	4:12
10.	"Stranded Lullaby"	Hawley, Allison Hanna (lyrics only)	Hawley	3:43
11.	"Dream Sweet In Sea Major"	Hawley, Karaca (lyrics only), Hanna (lyrics only)	Hawley	7:00

Bonus Track listing

#	Title	Writers	Lead Singers	Duration
0.	"Variations On A Cloud"	Cantor (lyrics only), Hawley	Cantor, Hawley	3:10

Leitmotifs

In accordance with the album's presentation as a pseudo-musical, the album contains multiple instances of lyrics and melodies being repeated and reused in different songs.

Leitmotifs

Song Name	Samples used
Introduction To The Snow	The entire song, save for the instrumental intro, is repeated at the beginning of 'Dream Sweet in Sea Major' though most of the lyrics are changed.
Isle Unto Thyself	The melody of the bridges is the same as used in the post-chorus of 'Variations on a Cloud'.
Black Rainbows	The line "And lo the hues arrange to show it's perfectly clear" reappears in 'Dream Sweet in Sea Major', though the melody is different.
White Ball	None.
Murders	The melody of the bridge also appears in the third verse of 'Variations on a Cloud' with altered lyrics.
宇宙ステーションのレベル7	The bridge shares it's melody and most of it's lyrics with the first bridge of 'Dream Sweet in Sea Major', though the final line, "Lance-toi et tu vivras toujours ce soir" translates to "You'll live forever tonight", the final line of 'Introduction to the Snow'.
The Mind Electric	There's a sample of the piano line in 'Murders', and part of the melody to 'Labyrinth' during the "See how the serfs work the ground" section.
Labyrinth	Parts of the instrumental are largely based off of a melody in The Mind Electric.
Time Machine	None.
Stranded Lullaby	Some of the humming appears in 'Dream Sweet In Sea Major'.
Dream Sweet In Sea Major	The songs opening is near identical to Introduction to the Snow, though the song ditches the piano introduction and instead begins at the start of the vocals; most of the lyrics are also changed. The pizzicato line that plays (with some variation) through the songs second movement is the same melody as the refrain in 'Variations on a Cloud' (though sped up and maybe with a different time signature?). The first bridge shares it's melody and half of it's lyrics with '宇宙ステーションのレベル7'. The line "And lo the hues arrange to show it's perfectly clear" is repeated from 'Black Rainbows'. The humming heard throughout the song is a pitched down version of the humming from "Stranded Lullaby" The first verse of the final movement carries the same melody as the piano that began the album. Finally, the melody from "The Mind Electric Demo 4" is shared with the line "We never meant to part" at the end of the song.
Variations On A Cloud	The melody of the third verse is the same as the bridge in 'Murders', The post chorus has the same melody as the bridge from 'Isle Unto Thyself' and the refrain is a slower version of the melody used for the pizzicato line in 'Dream Sweet in Sea Major'. The final section of the song also shares the melody and lyrics (with slight variations) of Ruler Of Everything.

Trivia

• The fonts used in the album cover art are Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro for the title, and Hiragino Kaku Gothic for the japanese text.

Liner Notes

Produced by Ross Federman, Joe Hawley, and Bora Karaca
Mixed by Ross Federman
Engineered by Bora Karaca at the LaBORAtory in Beverly Hills, CA
Mastered by Roman Vail at JLM, Brooklyn, NY
"Candle On The Water" mastered by Bora Karaca
"White Ball", "Stranded Lullaby", & "Dream Sweet in Sea Major" string arrangements composed by Joe Hawley and Joachim Horsley
Conductor: Joachim Horsley
Drum Programming: Ross Federman and Joe Hawley
Piano/Keys: Joe Hawley
Whistling: Bora Karaca
Cover Artwork: Dan Durda, Joe Hawley, Susan Holloway, and Bora Karaca
"Variations on a Cloud" artwork: Ross Federman and Joe Hawley
"Candle On The Water" artwork: Joe Hawley and Bora Karaca
Art Direction and Design: Joe Hawley
Special Thanks To You

External Links

https://www.hawaiipartii.com
Vimeo