Marlon Williams' first entirely te reo Māori album is deep and personal

Long recognised as one of this country’s finest singers, with a voice that can stretch effortlessly from country rock to operatic pop, Marlon Williams has made his first album entirely in te reo Māori, and it feels like the deepest, most personal work of his career.

Te Whare Tīwekaweka – which translates as The Messy House – has its beginnings in the Covid lockdowns. After a decade as a global troubadour, Williams found himself holed up in his hometown of Lyttelton. He had the solitude he needed to write a new album, only the songs wouldn’t come; that is, until he switched from his default mode of English to his other ancestral language, Māori. Though not initially confident in his reo, the songs started to flow with surprising ease, as though the limitations of his fluency somehow helped him simplify and clarify the things he wanted to say. His friend, the rapper KOMMI (Kommi Tamati-Elliffe), would check his grammar and occasionally contribute to the lyrics.

Listening to Te Whare Tīwekaweka, I’m reminded of what an inherently musical language te reo Māori is, especially when sung in a voice as exquisite as Williams'. That’s apparent from the a cappella opener, ‘E Mawehe ana Au’, which has the feel of a karanga – a welcome – though the words are about being split between worlds and might be the lament of a travelling musician.

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As the album unfolds, you’ll hear sounds more familiar from past Williams albums. His long-standing band the Yarra Benders provide typically dynamic yet understated backup. Multi-instrumentalist Dave Khan adds glorious colours; fiddles on the anthemic ‘Kuru Pounamu’, raging guitars on ‘Panaki’. Williams is joined by a gorgeously husky-voiced Lorde for the yearning piano ballad ‘Kāhore He Manu E’.

But writing in te reo has also connected Williams with sounds that have not been so prominent in his music before. In ‘Au Atu Ra’ he slips into the classic Māori strum, giving the song a musical ancestry that goes back to Prince Tui Teka or the Howard Morrison Quartet, and this old-time mood returns for the brisk waltz of ‘Whakameatia Mai’. In such moments I’m reminded of the album Em Haley-Walker recorded in 2003 as Te Kaahu, shedding her electro-pop persona Thea to make a record she explicitly hoped her aunties could enjoy. At other times I hear echoes of the great Hirini Melbourne, who wrote songs with children in mind, knowing they would carry the language into the future.

Many of the songs deal in poetic metaphors around themes of heartache, loss and separation. They are not overtly political. Yet in a year in which we have seen ministers ordering their departments to stop using Māori names, revision of the school curriculum to minimise Māori content, and the insult to Māori that is the Treaty Principles Bill, the very fact of this record’s existence is pointed. It shows that such attacks will ultimately fail, as the impulse to make art that reflects who and what we are is stronger than any ideologue’s agenda.

The beauty of this music is universal, whether one understands te reo Māori or not. Who hasn’t been moved by a voice singing in an unfamiliar language, whether it is Italian opera, a Soweto choir, or any number of exotic WOMAD acts? The international audience that already exists for Williams' music will be similarly drawn in.

But for New Zealanders, whether Māori or Pakeha, mono or multilingual, it is something even more special. Like all modern music it is a hybrid, blending elements of country, folk, pop and rock’n’roll, yet it is one that could only come from here, and it’s for all of us. This is the sound of home. This is the messy house to which we all belong.