22nd February 2011: Aspiring singer Marlon Williams was in the Lyttelton Coffee Company café on the Christchurch coast, by the Te Ana Marina. Williams, aged twenty-one, was discussing his planned debut album with songwriter Delaney Davidson. Suddenly, the café windows blew out and the street beyond began sinking. Everyone ran outside into chaos. The Christchurch earthquake had begun, ultimately taking nearly two hundred lives.
Looking back at the tragedy, Williams has said, “I still have a sense of danger I never had before the quake. You lose your trust in the stability of everything.” In time, Williams would emerge as a significant recording artist, but in the quake’s aftermath he and other local musicians went into making albums they could sell to fundraise and help others.
Williams is of Ngāi Tahu and Ngāi Tai descent, two Māori tribes of the South Island and Auckland region respectively. Obsessed early on by music as a vocation, his success is the result of constant touring and sheer doggedness. Now, with Te Whare Tīwekaweka, he turns to the Māori tongue of his ancestors for inspiration.
One question worth asking is how much the Christchurch quake, fourteen years ago, still possesses Williams? He says it shifted his way of thinking for the rest of time. He also says it was unifying, to be huddled with loved ones and feeling thankful they had each other. Is this album’s connection with his family culture a way of expressing that further? A subconscious sense of regaining the stability he lost all faith in?
Whatever the reason, be thankful for it, as Williams has made a modern classic of global music. There’s a real melange of styles which lets Williams place his Māori heritage within the contexts he loves best. Anyone whose record collection embraces the likes of Geoffrey Oryema, Runrig, Ruen Brothers, Rogér Fakhr and Neil Young will be on board. In the Māori language, every word ends in a vowel and they use lots of these. That could be why it lends itself to song so distinctively.
Opening track, E Mawehe Ana Au, is sung acapella, with poetic fervour, like a ritual gift from the past to the present. Kei Te Mārama has sweetly harmonised vocals and could easily have its base in African folk music. Williams has the vocal inflections just right, his melodic gift is here in lush abundance, unfazed by the language change, delivering one bountiful chorus after another. Aua Atu Rā is all jangly tremolo guitars with a vocal turn out of Roy Orbison’s heavenly realms. Williams then sounds free and content on Me Uaua Kē, a slice of balmy Tropicália in the Tim Bernardes mode.
Female vocals hold sway on Korero Māori, bringing to mind The Lijadu Sisters on a warming wave of cheeriness. Ko Tēnā Ua is a more prayerful acoustic piece as the backing chorals rise into something beatific. This is definitely open air music, where the essence of nature comes rushing in, full of human desires. Whakamaettia Mai is an upbeat Polynesian waltz, a skipping dance of heated joy. By contrast, Ngā Ara Aroha is backed by piano droplets with a deep Celtic richness in the vocal mantras.
There’s another comforting catchy chant on Huri te Whenua, before the fiery embrace of Kuru Pounamu brings defiant thumping drums and surging fiddles, the lead voices crying out in anguish or repentance. Williams teams up with Lorde for the pensive piano duet Kāhore He Manu E, while the closing shout of praise, Pōkaia Rā te Marama, is laced with pedal steel and a reverential choir.
There’s a relaxed togetherness in these laments and love songs, a sense of solidarity, even of ceremony. In nurturing his cultural and spiritual ties, Williams has found a way into his most expansive and majestic album yet. It’s also a quite brilliant set of pop tunes and rootsy rhythms. Maybe the ground Williams stands on will feel firmer as a result.
Te Whare Tīwekaweka (April 4th, 2025) Self Released
Marlon Williams Tour Dates
Thu. Apr. 10 – New York, NY @ National Sawdust
Fri. Apr. 11 – New York, NY @ Fire Talk Records (In-store)
Tue. Apr. 15 – Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
Wed. Apr. 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Amoeba Music (In-Store)
Tue. Apr. 22 – London, UK @ Rough Trade East (In- store)
Wed. Apr. 23 – London, UK @ St. Pancras Old Church – SOLD OUT
Thu. Apr. 24 – London, UK @ St. Pancras Old Church – SOLD OUT
Fri. Apr. 25 – London, UK @ St. Pancras Old Church – SOLD OUT
For Williams’ extensive New Zealand tour dates, visit: https://www.marlonwilliams.co.nz/live
Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, the forthcoming documentary film by Ursula Grace Williams, will be released alongside the album. The film weaves together the various strands of Marlon’s experience – musician, actor, son, friend and student – as he reflects on his career so far and the challenges and pleasures of articulating his worldview in te reo Māori.