Te Whare Tiwekaweka

前作をDead OceanからリリースしたMarlon Williamsの新作が登場。ニュージーランド出身の彼は今作でマオリ語で歌った作品を作りあげた。音楽のシンプルさの魔法を知っていたHirini Melbourneに捧げた楽曲はハワイアンに近いニュアンスの楽曲に独特の歌唱スタイルがバッチリとハマった作品。音楽が会話では成し得ないことを果たし、私たちのつながりを深め、広げてくれることを願っています。

A perennial chart-topper in his native New Zealand, Marlon Williams leans into his Māori heritage on Te Whare Tīwekaweka, his fourth solo album and first to be sung entirely in the te reo (Māori) language. His artistic homecoming was inspired by a literal one when, after years of living and traveling abroad, Williams returned to his hometown of Lyttelton, a small port just south of Christchurch. Struggling to write new material for his next album, he casually tried switching to his ancestral Māori language and something clicked. Out came a deluge of self-expression and perspective hed been unable to find in English, informing the direction of his next project. Musically, Te Whare Tīwekaweka -- which translates to "a messy house" -- builds on the amalgam of folk, country, and pop hes honed throughout his career, adding to it a distinctive Polynesian flavor brought on by the unique cadence of the vocals. For a successful pop artist with an international career, releasing an entire project in a little heard -- outside of Aotearoa -- ancestral tongue is a gamble, but he cuts no corners, going so far as to begin the record unaccompanied with the a cappella "E Mawehe Ana Au." The performance is intimate and its translation, "I am split between two worlds, sitting here, looking there, another world, another world, the chasm grows wider," reads like an artist statement about feeling lost in time. The set moves through a panoply of styles, from the breezy, tropical crooning of "Aua Atu Rā" to the playful group-sung "Kōrero māori," which humbly documents his own return to the culture. The overall tone of Te Whare Tīwekaweka is introspective with bursts of joy and heartbreak. Williams primary collaborator, Māori rapper KOMMI, is credited as co-lyricist on nearly all of the songs and makes a guest appearance on "Huri Te Whenua." A more prominent Kiwi, Lorde, takes her own stab at te reo on the lovely piano duet "Kāhore He Manu E." Tying together the personal motif is the albums eerie cover image, an illustration drawn by Williams mother, artist Jennifer Rendall, while she was pregnant with him. A standout amid his own catalog, Te Whare Tīwekaweka is a unique and emotional piece of work that is quite affecting even without knowing the language. ~ Timothy Monger