The Snake

iTunes Review

Wildbirds & Peacedrums is vocalist Mariam Wallentin and percussionist Andreas Werliin, a married Swedish couple making bold and remarkable music that falls somewhere between indie rock and experimental jazz. Wallentin may be the only scatting indie-rock vocalist on the horizon at the moment, and she does it with gusto and skill: her utterances pour forth as natural as spring water gushing from a well, surging and effervescent, in both bottom-diving lows and airy, near-whisper trills. Wallentin moans, yelps, and croons like a jazzy punk-art provocateur, but there is an odd serenity running through Snake, perhaps owing to the music’s tribal feel and trance-inducing power, or perhaps to Werliin’s dynamic, unadorned percussion, pulsing like a heartbeat. Mesmerizing, otherworldly tracks like “Island,” “Great Lines” and “Who Ho Ho Ho” are the delicate flip side to the combustive, edgy music that puts the duo in the upper echelons of any current art-punk genre that might exist: from the soulful blues of “Places” and “Today/Tomorrow” to the veiled pop of “Chain of Steel” and the haunting power of “There Is No Light,” The Snake is strikingly original.