Marlon Williams Make Way For Love LP

New Zealand’s Marlon Williams will release his sophomore album, Make Way For Love, on February 16th via Dead Oceans. Known for his effortlessly distinctive voice, Make Way For Love marks Marlon’s exponential growth as a songwriter. Throughout 11 original songs, he explores new musical terrain and reveals himself in an unprecedented way in the wake of a fractured relationship. In conjunction with today’s album announcement, Marlon announces an international tour and shares the album’s penultimate track, “Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore,” a duet with ex-girlfriend Aldous Harding, recorded after the two broke up via a late-night long distance phone call, and it’s accompany video.

Review of Marlon Williams - Make Way For Love by Thomas Bleach

New Zealand singer-songwriter Marlon Williams introduced himself to the world as a solo artist in 2016 with his debut self titled record. The short but impactful record saw him establish his soothing and calming sound and perfectly paved the way for his beautifully heart breaking sophomore album. “Make Way For Love” is a moody collection of 11 tracks that transports you musically back to a time where Roy Orbinson reigned the charts. Marlon successfully has you romanticising over broken hearts and the hyped up idea of love. “What’s Chasing You” has that “doo-woop” sound that you know and love while “Party Boy” offers a unique contrast of synths and his folk/alt-country sound. “Love Is A Terrible Thing” is a beautiful piano ballad that showcases his vocals in a different light and is the perfect contrast to the melodic single “Come to Me”. This is the sort of record you listen to when you want to have a little cry over a broken heart or just want to feel a lot of feelings or maybe feel nothing at all. It’s beautiful and tragic all at the same time but its also a very special and emotionally charged record.
See more from Thomas on his website While Make Way For Love draws on Marlon’s own story, a new area for him after conscientiously not sharing his own life in song in the past, it captures the vagaries of relationships we’ve all been through: the bliss, ache, uncertainty, and bitterness. Like the best of breakup records, Make Way For Love doesn’t shy away from heartbreak, but rather stares it in the face, and mines beauty from it. Delicate and bold, tender and searing, it’s a mightily personal new step for Marlon.

Make Way For Love was recorded with producer Noah Georgeson and his backing band, The Yarra Benders, in North California’s Panoramic Studios after several weeks of pre-production in his native Lyttelton, New Zealand with regular collaborator Ben Edwards. The finished result moves Marlon several paces from “country”—the genre that’s been affixed to him more than any in recent years, but one that’s always been a bit too reductive to be wholly accurate -- with forays into cinematic strings, reverb, rollicking guitar and at least one quiet piano ballad.