New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams has enlisted Lorde to guest on his new song. “Kāhore He Manu E” is taken from Williams’ first Māori language album, Te Whare Tīwekaweka, out April 4. The video is pulled from Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, Ursula Grace Williams’ documentary about the making of the album. Check it out below.
In a press release, Lorde said singing with Williams “is one of my favourite things to do on earth.” She also said, “Over the course of several years I watched Marlon pull at the threads that became Te Whare Tīwekaweka. I saw that the further he got into the album, the deeper my friend came to know himself, his whānau and his world at large. Marlon is an undercover perfectionist, and he was never going to embark on this journey without turning over every stone, crafting complex waiata that speak to the past while also braiding in his characteristic humour and X-ray vision.”
Williams added that Lorde’s voice, “in a very real sense, wrote the song. The distinct and striking characteristics in her voice cornering and demanding of the melody and phrasing what only her voice could.… We got to know each other through sharing the highs and lows of touring life, and in a real sense this song is an ode to the colourful but grim wormhole of road life, to the friends made and lost in the folds of time, ‘visions lost in the blur.’”
Back in 2021, Lorde released an EP, Te Ao Mārama, of five Solar Power songs re-recorded in New Zealand’s indigenous Maori language. In response to suggestions of tokenism, she said, “I welcome this discourse. Power like mine should be interrogated.” Proceeds from the record benefitted Forest and Bird and the Te Hua Kawariki Charitable Trust.
Williams released the lead single from Te Whare Tīwekaweka, “Aua Atu Rā,” last month.
