Kainalu - Ginseng Hourglass - Numbered edition

Death is a peculiar place, and few people have learned to process through and articulate the empty space surrounding that place as well as Hawaiian psych-electronica musician Trent Prall aka Kainalu. Following the recent untimely passing of his mother and the conversations they had surrounding her life and mortality in her last few months, Kainalu took to creating an album that captures the tiny joys amid the trauma and wisdom in the emotional ruin. But don’t get it mistaken, though the subject matter is sad, Ginseng Hourglass is anything but.

“I don’t want people to think this album is sad because it’s not, “ recalls Prall. “I have always used music as a way to heal. That’s what this music is — a way to escape into a vibe and atmosphere when the world was crumbling. It’s meant to transport you into a world because that’s what I needed when I wrote it.”

The soft concept album is meant to resemble the falling sand in an hourglass — the embodiment of time slipping away, knowing one’s time is all the more precious. Moving from groove to groove across the project, the joy of therein its danceable tunes, dig deeper to reveal a rabbit hole of emotions and further processing in its lyrical content. Simply put, Ginseng Hourglass is as much therapy as it is a fever dream, with Prall’s story front and center.

“I write to escape the thoughts that keeps me up at night. It’s a therapy device and meditative practice. These past years we all experienced so much loss. On top of the
pandemic, I really went through some serious trauma and I wrote this record because I needed to.”