The Scene

We kiwis like to anoint as national saints those of us talented enough to gain global recognition. We’re bad enough with our sports stars but when it comes to musicians we’re downright sanctimonious. It doesn’t help when the most successful of them is named ‘Lorde’ either. She’s positioned as a sort of alternative voice within the pop world but that mostly just makes here Lady Gaga for people who’ve read Wuthering Heights (the gothic sparse-scape, not the sappy romantic interpretation).

Marlon Williams, though, here’s an NZ songsmith (from Littleton, no less) for the folksters to savour. Folk music, that most indefinable of genres, only the word ‘alternative’ is more ambiguous. Alt country is probably the closest label for this fella but really all it means is that he’s impossible to categorise. That’s deliberate and it’s fantastic. He’s an old fashioned preacher of truth and wisdom, and he probably learned a fair bit from touring NZ as Justin Townes Earle’s opener a while back. Justin’s a big fan, apparently.

When I say ‘folk’, what I mean isn’t that he’s a Woody Guthrie impersonator, it’s more that he has this kind of timelessness to him. There are songs on this album that are grounded in 2015 and others that could have been written any time since the dawn of recorded music. That’s what a folk song is: one not anchored in time. A tune that sounds like it was never written, as if it just floated into existence, fresh and complete, on the back of a country breeze. Marlon Williams is a folk singer. A real one, too, not one of those faux-hipster folkies who wouldn’t know Mississippi John Hurt from Marcus Mumford’s left tit.

The Songs

Hello Miss Lonesome – A chugging ragtime beat and some pretty background harmonies carry a rapid, wailing tune that’ll have you stomping your foot through the floorboards.
After All – More in the Californian soft-rock mould. A fuzzy solo, an easy-going groove and a superb hook in the chorus.
Dark Child – A gothic haunting about the proverbial black sheep of a family. Delivers the knockout blow and then plays on into a slow fade to leave you pondering the tragedy.
I’m Lost Without You – An inspired bargain bin reclamation, a lovely and string-adorned cover of an old 60s torch ballad. There are no limits.
Lonely Side of Her – Straight up folk ballad. Finger-picked acoustic, a lovely melody and a heartfelt performance.
Silent Passage – A Bob Carpenter hidden classic of 70s singer-songwriting. Really, undeniably, absolutely and comprehensively gorgeous. Bit of fiddle and pedal steel for the sprinkles on top.
Strange Things – Weird and ghostly in a folk-country kinda way. Like the Addams Family meets the Carter Family. In the best way, of course.
When I Was a Young Girl – Some ageless, traditional lamentations. Folksy damnation. Very eerie, otherworldly.
Everyone’s Got Something to Say – Smooth sailing to the finish line with a quick and touching strummed song of wry understanding.

The Vibe

Several of these songs go straight for the heart with their piercing tones. It’s mostly that voice that Marlon possesses that gets ya. So sharp and stunningly incisive. Like a siren, which isn’t a simile often saved for male singers. But he really goes for that high-lonesome feeling that so many predecessors aimed for but few really got. Gram Parsons is a fair comparison, Williams is a lil less country and a lil more folk than Gram was but they each have the same way of cutting through all the unnecessaries to the very core of a song.

Being a twenty-something dude from Littleton, this isn’t exactly Americana, though it’ll probably be mistaken for it. Such is the problem in this country with our ideas of genre (Lucinda Williams spoke on RNZ a while back about how people in NZ keep telling her how they don’t like country but they like her music, to which she responds ‘Yeah, coz I’m not really country’). Instead, like proper folk music (using that label for better/worse), it comes across as timeless and spaceless. It helps that he uses his editor’s hat to pick a couple of very, very obscure covers from times long gone.

The Music

Marlon Williams is his own dude but you can spot some very notable influences across the board. Like the Beach Boys harmonies at the end of ‘After All’ or the Inside Llewyn Davis finger-pickers in there. Hey, Oscar Isaac is one of the very best actors out there, but imagine if Marlon Williams had been in that film. Just think on it for a sec.

What he does with ‘I’m Lost Without You’ is pretty revelatory in itself, taking a pretty slice of 60s pop cheese and doing with it what Roy Orbison used to do on the regular with those kinds of songs. In fact it’s this track where you can, more than anywhere else, almost imagine the ghost of The Big O staring down on him and smiling a la Mufasa in the Lion King. It’d be a travesty of music journalism to say anyone has a voice like Roy Orbison but Marlon’s got a few tinges. That smooth, forlorn moan. It’s one hell of an asset.

For the most part we’re talking acoustic guitars and non-invasive production. That’s what you want from such an album. But where this one takes flight is in how much ground he’s able to cover. Each song is like a concept album in itself, a story or a photograph in the space of a few minutes. There are only nine songs here (which is also commendable, not emptying the well at the first trip like so many others do) but each of those nine songs is unique and fully realised. He could move in any one of those nine directions or probably several more as yet untraveled and that’s a beautiful thing. In being so eclectic he’s avoided that ritualistic labelling of new artists. For the most part.

You can tell that he’s spent time working these tracks out, either on the road or in the studio. You can tell that because of the little details. Like how he sings so close to the mic in ‘Dark Child’ that you can actually hear his tongue clicking. It adds such an eerie feeling to the track, one that’s then accentuated by the falsetto of the chorus. That song is one of two that he’s co-credited on (Tim Moore helped write it). The other is his and occasional duet partner Delaney Davidson’s scribing of ‘After All’. There are those three covers and then the other four are solo penned ones from Marlon. He’s a modest songwriter, but a very good one. Having said that, his ear for a cover song is so damn good that you’d almost never want him to feel limited in that way. Just another possible route in a fascinatingly blossoming career.

Revelations

“Now we all pick our poison. We dig our own graves/And Jesus is accountable for every soul he saves.”

“Although the news came as no surprise, I always hoped I'd never have to bury a child”

Marlon chills in Melbourne now and then with The Drones. That’s badass.

The album was recorded in Christchurch on a studio five doors down from his parents’ place. So he basically moved back home to make the record and went all out: “We didn't leave Hawkhurst Road for the entire recording period, except to get beers."

“Say goodbye to all that she defends and let me love the lonely side of her.”

The musicians were all locally based, many from The Unfaithful Ways, Williams’ old band. His partner, Aldous Harding (who’s a ripper of a songstress in her own right) sang backup on five of the tracks.

“Although it’s only coming home that brings you near.”

He was named after Marlon Brando, of course.

“I hear strange things creeping in the night. I hear strange things in the bed where Lucy died.”

From his website bio: “The first three things I remember Mum listening to were PJ Harvey, early choral music and Smokey Robinson. A lot of Maori music too. We used to go down the marae for meetings and sing these big harmony songs.” – That about sums it up, right? The rawness of PJH, the beauty and harmonies of choral music and the rich craft of Smokey. Plus you can definitely hear the Maori folk angle, 100%. If he cuts a version of Pokarekare Ana, I might cry.

Oh, The Band too. They get a shout out in that bio and despite the Orbison stuff earlier, the best vocal comparison out there might be Richard Manuel. There was a guy who could hit those high ones and make you feel ‘em. Except that where Marlon errs on the side of wistfulness, Manuel sounded like he was on the verge of tears when he sang. He also hanged himself, jeezus what a tragedy.

Maybe a big chunk of Tim Buckley in there too, now you mention it. Marty Robbins too, Gunslinger Marty Robbins. Hell, that might be the best comparison of all.

Finale

A fresh and mesmerising new voice (and what a voice!) singing timeless songs of depth and purity and it just so happens that he’s a kiwi lad too. Which is irrelevant except that it means he’ll be in town to go see way more often. Chur.

This album came out in NZ earlier in the year as an independent release and has simmered around here since. But you’re about to hear a whole lot more of it when it gets US release in January thanks to a distribution deal with Dead Oceans – also home to the likes of The Tallest Man on Earth, Strand of Oaks and - *eek* - Phosphorescent. Oh and he’s planning on recording some stuff with Justin Townes Earl in Nashville early next year.

This fella’s the real deal.