Kava Infused is a live recording from a 2019 concert at the Kava Bar in Hilo. A vibrant space full of vibrant people. Composing all of my music in a live audience setting is the quintessence of my work. While the COVID pandemic left artists around the globe in uncertainty and limited, changed, or even boosted everyone’s creative flow, I joined the bandwagon for a while and jumped on live streaming platforms to give it a shot.

However, I could not maintain the initial energy and soon felt confused about what this digital mirror of our mass consumption world reflected to us.

Content creators create more content for what reason? Influencers selling questionable antidotes to strangers while spreading misinformation anecdotes for a thumbs up? Engagement is everything. Staying on top is key — by all means.

Kava, also known as ‘awa in Hawai’i, is a crop of the Pacific Islands. The name kava is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning ‘bitter.’ The plant’s root is used to produce a drink with sedative, anesthetic, and euphoriant properties, consumed throughout the Pacific Ocean cultures of Polynesia, including Hawai’i, Vanuatu, Melanesia, and some parts of Micronesia, such as Palau.

Skimming through the recording of my Kava Bar gig made me nostalgic. A flower power environment with zero sorrows, during a time when nobody worried about inhaling each other’s droplets.

I enjoyed a whole lotta Kava love droplets before allowing the magic from within to manifest itself in the form of this extended five-track live composition. I invite you to glide into a liquid trip of warm pads and sync up the pulse of the soul with subtle beats of multilayered echoes to attempt a wake-up call for world peace.

Over the years, I created my unique style of live time-stretching, layering several tempi, and occasionally creating a sometimes more or less gentle distraction from what the mind expects. A wide dynamic range leads to occasional input overdrives, which add scratches of good dirt to the otherwise clean-shaven soundscape of modern-day music production. It is a provocative element you may quickly learn to enjoy as it breathes extra life into the recording.

Mixing and mastering my new album, Kava Infused, gave me hope. The truth is, I became more and more certain that it is possible to conflate the magic of the unknown and the accomplishment of modern-day peer-reviewed evidence-based science. The result could be a delicious love potion that might help us overcome a toxic ego-centric neoliberalistic mindset that birthed Big Pharma and Big Wellness.

One day, we might learn how to let go of false beliefs and telephone-game-based information installed onto our thinking apparatus through the so-called illusory truth effect, to replace them with evolutionary updates as we strive towards a peaceful global family while embracing the beauty of our shared reality of impermanence.

During my DJ career, I learned how to implement my live-looping rig in a club environment and fell in love with extended Minimal and Techno tracks. I started live-remixing them by adding or replacing minor elements with my electric violin, telescopic didgeridoo, percussion, and vocal effects. In 2018, I adapted this technique to a computer-free live-looping environment and started composing everything from scratch in a live audience setting.

I invite you to descend into a meditative, almost psychedelic, trance state. When and where? Yogi’s choice. Some sounds might make you want to dance or enjoy a yoga flow. And some sounds might make you want to mop the floor.

Kava Infused Live Composition on 5-string Electric Violin, Didjeribone, Voice, Percussion 5 Pieces | 1 Hour 20 Minutes Recorded at Space & Light, Hilo, Hawaiʻi Artwork by Markus Mars Photo by Steve Roby UPC 198002406811 ℗ & © 2022 Markus Mars