We are proud to present from our archives Veronica our Female artist from 2011 This EP was co-written with local music veteran Lance Motogawa. Give her credit for not cutting corners on production costs; she and her producers, Motogawa and Kalapana founder DJ Pratt, use live instruments on several tracks where other young artists would settle for computerized substitutes. Appealing voices are never out of style, and songs about irresistible love are always popular — Wilson/Phillips’ “Impulsive” and “Take It While It’s Hot” by Sweet Sensation being great examples from an earlier era. Veronica borrows nothing from either song but gets maximum commercial leverage with the title song. A commercial Jawaiian beat drives her account of falling for a man whose charms she cannot resist (“My mind is saying ‘forget him’/My heart won’t let go”). Her voice and the lyrics sell the song — a guy can imagine that she’s singing about him; women can relate to the emotions she describes. Veronica describes the pain of departure — for a mainland college, the military or whatever — with “I Know.” So many people have been leaving Hawaii in recent years searching for better opportunities elsewhere that this song too expresses feelings that many people share. Veronica also touches the heart with “The Fire,” a requiem for a relationship that is “no longer burning.” Songs like this one will have an audience for as long as hearts get broken. Veronica and Motogawa make a bid for play on Hawaii’s self-styled “island music” radio stations as they welcome Tim “Papa T” Troxell from B.E.T as her guest vocalist on “Just an Island Girl.” With Herb Ohta Jr. reinforcing the “island” feel on ukulele, the song is tailor made for the “kanakafarian” set.