Lorde joins Marlon Williams on new single, “Kāhore He Manu E”

The accompanying video is pulled from Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua - Two Worlds, the forthcoming documentary film by Ursula Grace Williams about the making of the record, and is a window into the recording process, friendship, and collaboration between Williams and Lorde.

When Williams was having difficulty writing an album in English, he found that switching to his other ancestral tongue, which while not fluent, unlocked a new means of self-expression and felt like an important act of reclamation. He spent five years creating Te Whare Tīwekaweka, reconnecting with family, friends, and his home town of Lyttelton.

"‘Kāhore He Manu E’ was one of those gentle labours. It played itself out to me, easily and near complete from the first. It was also obvious who should be singing it; Ella’s voice in a very real sense wrote the song.," Williams explains. "The distinct and striking characteristics in her voice cornering and demanding of the melody and phrasing what only her voice could. Singing with Ella is incredible; the amount of mind she’s able to pour into the vessel. We got to know each other through sharing the highs and lows of touring life, and in a real sense this song is an ode to the colourful but grim wormhole of road life, to the friends made and lost in the folds of time, ‘visions lost in the blur.’"

"Over the course of several years I watched Marlon pull at the threads that became Te Whare Tīwekaweka. I saw that the further he got into the album, the deeper my friend came to know himself, his whānau and his world at large," adds Lorde. "Marlon is an undercover perfectionist, and he was never going to embark on this journey without turning over every stone, crafting complex waiata that speak to the past while also braiding in his characteristic humour and X-ray vision. Singing with Marlon is one of my favourite things to do on earth, whether we are tipsy backstage by a pool table or in a luscious studio, and I was honoured he asked me to sing with him on this album. I’m so proud of my friend."