Mariam Wallentin
About this Artist
Mariam Wallentin is an artist with a big heart, as thoughtful as she is musically bold. An Alice Coltrane for our time. Soulfulness meets music that makes us feel and think. With musical roots partly in improvisation and new music, partly in pop and soul, Wallentin’s career has crossed a number of multifaceted territories. As half of the vocal-and-drum duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums she has collaborated with and supported artists like St. Vincent, Joanna Newsom, Mica Levi, and Caribou. Wallentin is also one of the creative forces and composers for the jazz big band Fire Orchestra. She sang for Björk at the Polar Music Prize event and has performed at the Royal Opera House and Holland Festival. Wallentin has worked with renowned musicians such as Feist, Damien Rice, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Lykke Li, and saxophone player Mats Gustafsson, to name a few. She won the Swedish Manifest prize and the Jazzkatten prize and was nominated for the Nordic Music Prize and several Swedish Grammys.
With an uncompromising approach to music, Wallentin also started the solo project Mariam The Believer, which has released three acclaimed full-length albums on her label, Repeat Until Death. Her 2024 album, Breathing Techniques, brings the mundane into an esoteric perspective. Wallentin has used the act of breathing as a vehicle, bringing awareness to her astonishment at her everyday surroundings. Breathing Techniques is a weave of mantras, a guide to seeing and registering the small things, the tiny animals, the elements, the presence, and the precious.