Between The Drums And Your Stomach

It’s been a dark and icy day in Stockholm but Andreas Werliin has made the most of it, cheerfully skiing cross-country through the winter gloom that envelops the city. The percussion half of Swedish experimental pop duo Wildbirds and Peacedrums is in a contemplative mood, speaking with thoughtful precision, while occasionally groping for the right word. Under his tongue, English grammar receives a treatment similar to the pair’s approach to the humble pop song; it’s squeezed and stretched into rare and unusual shapes.

Werliin formed Wildbirds and Peacedrums back in 2006 with his then girlfriend (now wife) Mariam Wallentin. The couple met in an improvisation class at the University of Gothenburg where they were both studying music, their initial musical efforts propelled at least in part by a frustration with the limitations of the academic approach. “I knew what I wanted to do – making music on the drums,” he says, “but I didn’t know how to do it, [how to go about it], so school was just… borrowing time, working out what you want to do with yourself.”

The duo’s first album was 2007’s Heartcore, which established their method: stripping the pop song back to a skeleton, allowing them to more fully explore the tone and texture of the bare elements, Wallentin’s strikingly warm vocals soaring above the steady foundation of Werliin’s percussion. Winning accolades at home and abroad, the pair followed it the next year with The Snake, a striking collection that displayed an invigorating fearlessness, both musically and in Wallentin’s arresting lyrics. Werliin is philosophical about these fledging efforts, viewing them as products of particular moments in their musical development rather than definitive artistic statements. “I’m very happy that we made them the way we made them,” he says. “Every album has been very different; how we recorded them, how they sound. It’s like babies, you can’t decide which you like the most.

“For us, for the songs, we have not yet found the perfect version,” he continues in his broken English.  “It can be frustrating sometimes, if you’re trying too hard to be creative – but then it keeps us going, the search for that great way of playing. For us we haven’t found that, so the recording is a documentation, it’s just the indicator of songs, the pop structure. We’re always trying to keep fresh energy into it.” The pair also relish the opportunity to experiment with the recording process. Their most recent effort, River, consists of two conceptually linked EPs that appeared last year as vinyl-only releases, welded together as complementary halves of the one album. The first, Retina, features a choir directed by the capable hands of Mum member Hildur Gudnadóttir, with results that recall Björk’s Medulla in a moody exploration of the human voice;  the second, Iris, utilises the sound of the steel drum to lend the songs a quality that can only be described as iridescent.

What’s important, though, is the band’s simple commitment to both the creative process of improvisation and to the physical joys of making a sound, whether it be with air and vocal chords or by hitting a piece of leather with a stick. “We don’t play a lot of instruments,” explains Werliin, “we don’t have guitar and piano, so basically we’re just trying to find instruments that are quite easy to play … that’s easy to create good sounds from them.

“I’ve always been obsessed with new ways to play a drumkit, or find new sounds. But in the end I’m not very interested in if [the music sounds] modern or not, but in the connection between the drums and your stomach. Without being too obvious about it, if it feels very timeless, then you know it’s right. That’s how we treat music.”


First published in The Brag, Iss 401, February 28th 2011