Marlon Williams - Live at Auckland Town Hall (2019) Hi Res

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.