Aotearoa singer/songwriter Marlon Williams’ fourth solo album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka translates as ‘The Messy House’, a title that for Marlon describes a world in creative flux, one that is dynamic and alive. One could be forgiven for seeing Williams’ musical world as “a messy house,” his propensity for hopping between genres within the space of a single record now well known.
The first songs Marlon remembers were simple melodies sung among classmates in his Māori-immersion early education, some of them written by the album’s dedicatee, legendary Māori songwriter Hirini Melbourne. Later came classical training, and then the passion for country, folk and bluegrass that has underlaid much of Marlon’s musical output to date. Those influences, along with many others, are all there on Te Whare Tīwekaweka but here there's a musical and lyrical honesty that more seamlessly than ever integrates them into the songwriting entity that is Marlon Williams. “The title,” he says, “is both an acknowledgement of the chaos at play in bringing diverse creative strands into a single body of work, and also that perfection is not a precursor for inhabitation.”
To celebrate his latest release, Marlon joins Milo Eastwood on The Breakfast Spread on Wednesday April 2 for an intimate Studio 5 Live session. Tune in from 8am for a special set and interview.
