New Zealand’s Marlon Williams will release his sophomore album, Make Way For Love, on February 16th via Caroline Music. 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 Aldous Harding, recorded via a late-night long distance phone call, plus an accompanying video filmed in New York City.
While Make Way For Love draws on Marlon’s own story, it captures the vagaries of relationships we’ve all been through: the bliss, ache, uncertainty, and bitterness. Like the best 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.
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 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, on his most expansive work to date.
Currently in the midst of a sold out global preview tour, to support his stand alone single Vampire Again, next year will see Marlon take his captivating live show to 46 cities around the world for his largest ever headline tour.
WATCH VIDEO FOR LEAD SINGLE “NOBODY GETS WHAT THEY WANT ANYMORE” (DUET WITH ALDOUS HARDING)