APRA SONGWRITER SPEAKS w/ MARLON WILLIAMS

MARLON WILLIAMS AND KOMMI IN CONVERSATION WITH MOANA MANIAPOTO

As Marlon releases his new album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka, we host a special conversation about waiata reo Māori, connection, and collaboration.

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APRA AMCOS Aotearoa are delighted to invite you to a special APRA Songwriter Speaks event with the incomparable Marlon Williams, alongside Ōtautahi artist KOMMI (mātanga reo and key co-writer on Te Whare Tīwekaweka) in conversation with songwriter and journalist Moana Maniapoto.

“Ko te reo Māori, he matapihi ki te ao Māori” is the whakatauki that has guided singer/songwriter Marlon Williams’ [Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tai] fourth solo album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka. Translated as “the Māori language is a window to the Māori world”, it expresses the motivation behind his first full album in te reo Māori.

“Through the process of constructing these songs,” Marlon says, “I’ve found a means of expressing my joys, sorrows and humour in a way that feels both distinctly new yet also connects me to my tīpuna and my whenua.”

Connection lies at the heart of Te Whare Tīwekaweka, the album’s five-year process reconnecting Marlon to family, friends and his hometown of Lyttelton after a decade spent touring the globe and establishing his career. The sense of a homecoming is further expressed via the album's cover art, courtesy of Marlon’s mother, artist Jennifer Rendall, drawn when she was pregnant with the future singer and eerily resembling an adult Marlon.

The album signifies another step in Marlon’s journey with his ancestral tongue, his ability in the language developing as songs accumulated in the hours spent with close friend and co-writer, Ōtautahi artist KOMMI [Kāi Tahu, Te-Āti-Awa].

Supported by long-time touring band The Yarra Benders and co-produced by Mark Perkins [Te Whānau-ā-Apanui], featuring the He Waka Kōtuia singers and a collaboration with Lorde, the album traverses Marlon’s familiar folk-country territory, while continuing his exploration of more contemporary waters and the inherent rhythms of waiata Māori. The result is a collection that is at once both contemporary and timeless.

The making of the album was captured by documentary maker Ursula Grace Williams in the forthcoming feature Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua - Two Worlds, with Marlon wanting to share his journey in the hope others might benefit - the same impulse that drives his songwriting. “I hope that music may do the mahi that conversation cannot, and that it may broaden and deepen our sense of interconnectedness,” he says. By expanding his output into reo Māori, Marlon has widened the portal through which such connection can happen. Te Whare Tīwekaweka, he says, has given him “a bigger playground”.

N.B.: Catch Marlon playing Te Whare Tīwekaweka live this Autumn, supported on tour by friend and collaborator KOMMI.