"In a lot of ways it's been in the making my whole life," says Marlon Williams about his new album, Te Whare Tiwekaweka.

Written and sung entirely in te reo Māori, the fourth album for the 34-year-old singer-songwriter —following his 2015 self-titled debut, 2018's Make Way for Love, and 2022's My Boy— finds him reconnecting with a language that he grew up speaking – and singing.

"Māori have communalistic culture, so we get together at least every year and have a big hui, a big get-together, and we all sing. So, the pressure was on every year to learn all the songs that we'd be singing," Williams offers.

"Māori as a sung language is kind of like Italian. The vowels are rich and full, and it's just a great language to sing."

In conversation with Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground, Williams talks about writing in another tongue, linguistic relativity, punning across language, the political act of singing in Māori, and the power of large-group singing.

Feature image: Ian Laidlaw