Wildbirds & Peacedrums reject music college, go heartcore instead
Words Andrew Fenwick / Image(s) Rachel Lipsitz
“I knew that there was much more to come out of the drum kit than the usual sounds you hear bands churning out everyday,” says Andreas Werliin, explaining the dynamic rhythmic palette that colours Wildbirds & Peacedrums heavily expressive, percussion-driven music.
With songwriter and vocalist wife Mariam Wallentin, the Swedish duo have forged an extraordinary hybrid of left-leaning pop and swampy blues that seesaws between pagan rhythms and bewitching balladry. It’s no overstatement to say their self produced debut, Heartcore, is something of a minor masterpiece.
The couple met four years ago at Gothenburg’s Academy of Music and Drama, where Werliin studied percussion and Wallentin vocal improv. But they quickly grew frustrated at the institution’s strictures. “I ended up getting really mad with the way music was made there,” says Werliin. “It was just so rigid and left no room for creativity at all.”
Born of a desire to break down and then reconstruct music in a more impassioned manner, the pair admit to making the majority of their music up as they go along. “We’ve never had any formula, so it’s always been a case of just believing in each other,” continues Wallentin. “It works out, though; we’ve never felt any weight of expectation on our shoulders.”
Having never recorded before, Werliin and Wallentin were forced to keep the recording of Heartcore as primitive as possible, using just drums and live vocals. “We’ve played a lot of gigs, so we tried to rely on the energy we create on stage,” says Werliin. “It was so hard to know what the result was going to be like because we had no references; we just stuck with the goal of trying to capture a sound that was as honest as possible.”
With a fiery passion and magnetic stage presence, Wallentin’s uninhibited vocals perfectly accompany Werliin’s innovative rhythms. “I’ve been really inspired by artists including Nina Simone, Joni, Sarah Vaughan and that old guard of queens,” says Wallentin. “Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of improv vocalists and African choirs - basically people with deep, dark voices.”
The pair’s songs effortlessly flit from wistful laments, as on ‘I Can’t Tell In His Eyes’, to crashing crescendos, as on album highlight, ‘Doubt/Hope’. Wildbirds & Peacedrums: proof, then, that emotional depth, when given the space to breathe, is most definitely a beautiful thing.
