Marlon Williams (Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tai) next album ‘Te Whare Tīwekaweka’ will be his first album entirely in the Māori language.
The first taste of the album is ‘Aua Atu Rā’. Marlon said, “‘Aua Atū Ra’ has existed as a song since May 2019. My stumbling around in flawed, simple Māori in my Lyttelton bedroom studio, spurned on by the thought of writing a depressively isolationist rebuttal to the above whakatauki, was the moment that kickstarted the record. It speaks to something universal, but especially pertinent to Te Ao Māori’s collectivist culture, that I’ve always found difficult to square. We ARE all in the same boat, and as the British literary pundit GK Chesterton added to the picture, ‘we owe each other a terrible loyalty,’ and yet are at once utterly alone.
Marlon says, “Ko te reo Māori, he matapihi ki Te Ao Māori” goes the Māori whakatauki (proverb) that has guided Te Whare Tīwekaweka. Translated to “The Māori language is a window to the Māori world,” it expresses Marlon’s motivation behind this album. He comments, “Through the process of constructing these songs, 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 (ancestors) and my whenua (land, home).”
“As a songwriter, I cherish simplicity, but as a speaker of Māori, I had a bucketload of whakamā (self-doubt) to push through before I could even approach my friend Kommi about helping me write songs in Māori. We took this song out on the road with us five years ago and it just felt so damn good to play. I’m proud of it for reasons deeper than I’ve felt as a songwriter before. This song acted as a guiding light for the rest of the album to follow.”
“I hope that music may do the mahi (work) that conversation cannot, and that it may broaden and deepen our sense of interconnectedness,” he says. By expanding his output into Māori, Marlon has widened the portal through which that connection might happen. Te Whare Tīwekaweka, he says, has given him “a bigger playground”.
Te Whare Tīwekaweka Tracklist:
1. E Mawehe Ana Au
2. Kei Te Mārama
3. Aua Atu Rā
4. Me Uaua Kē
5. Korero Māori
6. Ko Tēnā Ua
7. Whakamaettia Mai
8. Ngā Ara Aroha
9. Huri te Whenua (Featuring KOMMI)
10. Kuru Pounamu
11. Kāhore He Manu E (Featuring Lorde)
12. Pānaki
13. Rere Mai Ngā Rau
14. Pōkaia Rā te Marama
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