Yet another brilliant product of the burgeoning Swedish music scene (that includes acts as diverse as José González, The Knife, and The Hives) Wildbirds and Peacedrums (signed to Leaf Label) are a husband and wife acoustic two-piece featuring Andreas Werliin on percussion and Mariam Wallentin delivering haunting vocals ranging from passionate Flamenco-esque screams to bizarre chants. Their rapturous live shows see them slipping into an almost trance like state, wrapping up the audience along with them in a delirious frenzy of sound, which includes some of the most accomplished drumming you’ll ever see. Maddog caught up with them at the Norwich Arts Centre last month.

MD: I spoke to fellow Swedes Peter, Bjorn and John the other month and they told me there are a lot of good bands in Sweden at the moment, especially Gothenburg where you’re from.

Mariam: I think that there’s good music everywhere. But there’re definitely a lot of Swedish acts coming up right now. It comes in waves. A couple of years ago it was Finland, and now its Sweden.

Andreas: Sweden has always had a strong will and the confidence to go outside of Sweden. Along with Finland and Iceland the music has travelled around the world.

MD: Especially Iceland.

Andreas: It just needs one person who made it to open the doors. For Iceland it was Bjork and for Sweden it was… ABBA [laughs].

MD: recently I guess Peter, Bjorn and John have almost become ambassadors for Swedish music.

Mariam: There’s also Robyn.

MD: On a more obscure note there is the electro pop duo The Knife, I absolutely love them. Karin Dreijer Anderson’s solo project Fever Ray is also brilliant. Are there other bands you’d recommend?

Mariam: There’s Loney Dear. And there’s Little Dragon. You should check them out. They are from Gothenburg too. José González is on the same label, Peace Frog.

MD: Ok let’s talk about your music now. You’re a bit different to other bands. It’s just the two of you and you’ve stripped the music right down so its just vocals and percussion. How do you see your music working?

Andreas: For us it’s working perfectly fine [laughs]. It’s weird this is the only situation in which our sound has come to fruition. We have all the freedom we need.

Mariam: We never think of it that we are just two, because then you are comparing yourself to other people. I think it’s important to choose what’s important and not build your music on others.

MD: Do you try to isolate yourself from influences?

Mariam: No, I mean we listen to music and we love it, but what you do needs to be personal; it comes from within.

Andrea: For me it becomes a physical thing. When I create something that has too much of an influence from something else – it’s like my body just says ‘no way!’

Mariam: On the other hand it’s important not to do something just to be original. That wasn’t our intention. We just played and people found it really weird, as we were just drums and vocals. So then we started thinking about it: so maybe it does sound a little different?

We do see ourselves as a band, though. We add instruments when we think a song needs more sounds. I wouldn’t call our music simple, but I would say that we try to keep it pure. The way music should be; something more than normal life.

Andrea: It’s uncontrolled in a way, for me. There are no other instruments to put you in a corner.

Mariam: It’s so easy to make a good record these days. You just add and add and add. Its become too much of a safety net. Music should be free. You should throw yourself out there.

MD: So do you keep production to a minimum?

Mariam: Yeah, I mean we produced both of our records ourselves. We normally start with more sounds than we end up with. The interesting thing is to take away stuff and see what’s left. It’s the music that’s left, like an oyster and a pearl.

MD: Do you feel any affinity to the Danish film movement Dogme, who reject the Hollywood aesthetic in favour of a pure approach to filmmaking – their so-called ‘Seven Vows of Chastity’?

Andreas: I never thought about it, but yeah, sometimes having rules can be really inspiring and stimulating. It limits your way, but the results can be more interesting than if you just had everything.

Mariam: We have chosen the limitation of just being two people and only using acoustic sounds. By having the frames there we can be freer and our personalities can come out more.

MD: Is there anything you do in the live show to engage with the audience. Do you find it harder being two people?

Andreas: It can be a big effort at first. When you’re playing in a new city and nobody has heard of you, it could be a big surprise for them! But I love that feeling. To just throw something out there and see the reaction.

Mariam: Whenever we play at festivals we always get put in the singer songwriter corner, because we’re just too people. They think we just make really quiet music. The great challenge too is that we have our songs, but when we play live we can cut it up. On the other hand if we’re having a bad day we can be more sensitive as well. Like I say there’s a risk taking in playing, but that’s the excitement as well.

MD: Do you find you improvise quite a lot in your sets?

Mariam: Yeah when we need to. If we feel like we need to let something out. I think if people go to a lot of our concerts they’ll find each one different, but its not because we are particularly trying to do that. We’re a pop band in some ways.

Andres: We do have a set list! [laughs]

Mariam: It’s just because of the way our music is built; it has a lot of spaces in it, and we can fill the spaces how we like.

MD: Is this the first time you’ve been to Norwich and have you had a chance to look around?

Mariam: Yes this is our first time, but we’ve only just arrived. It’s a lovely venue though. It’s really spiritual to be playing in a church.

MD: Are you playing at any UK festivals this year?

Mariam: Yes but I don’t know which ones. Our new album comes out in a couple of weeks so we will get confirmations then. We are playing a special show in London on the 5th of June at the Coronet Theatre called ‘A Ritual for Elephant and Castle’ and we will have about 20 drummers with us, so that’s exciting.

MD: Ok so tell me about your new album, The Snake? How does it differ from Heartcore?

Mariam: Well there has been a year between them and Heartcore was more like a first record experiment. We just recorded it without a masterplan. If Heartcore is more inwards looking than The Snake is more explosive I think, and more determined and searching.

Andreas: we developed this more explosive sound from playing live. When we were playing Heartcore we realised that we wanted bigger sounds and emotions.

MD: Do you have any plans for the future?

Mariam: Yeah we have a lot of plans. We’re looking forward to releasing this CD because it’s been out in Sweden for a year already. In the autumn we’ll be releasing it in the US, then we’ll start thinking of new stuff. Maybe we’ll go to Japan.

MD: That’s interesting. There’s quite a closeness between what your doing and the classical music of Japan, like Taiko drumming and very abstract singing. It’s very ethereal and unique. Are you drawn to that?

Andreas: it’s funny because when we started we hadn’t heard a lot of the bands that people compared us to, like the band Creatures, and then we heard them and they were amazing – like Siouxsie and the Banshees. We also got some nice Korean drumming albums.

Mariam: We’ve also been to China. We lived in Beijing for two months and we got our band name when we were out there. We met a lot of Beijing musicians. We’ve even had some Chinese instruments on our records, like the guzheng. That’s the most amazing thing about touring – meeting new people. I’d like to work with a choir of seventy year old ladies, singing really high.

Words > Dean Bowman
Main photo > Katie Utting