One half of Swedish alt-pop duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums alongside her husband Andreas Werliin, Mariam Wallentin has decided to go it alone with her solo project, the brilliantly-named Mariam the Believer.

Inspired by the purchase of a white Gibson guitar in New York, Wallentin set about recording the songs that would eventually make up her debut solo album, Blood Donation, specifically striving to make something that would challenge her own relationship with music. „To be in the dark, wanting the light. To learn how to give without demanding anything in return. Wanting to challenge the world, and yourself,“ she explains.

„But really, I probably just want the record to feel like something you've dug up from the dark ground.“

It's this sense of scrabbling around in the dirt that underlines the glowering Invisible Giving, premiered here, which pummels and scratches throughout its ever-changing seven minutes. „I tried to make several songs out of it but it wasn't how it wanted to be played, the different parts in the song structure needed each other to make sense of it somehow,“ she says. „The song is also a bit about that, how small parts in life are linked and together make a way leading to something – that we should not neglect the tiny things in life that may not seem important at first.“

Like the best of Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Invisible Giving seems to be ever undulating, with raw emotion bubbling up to the surface and simmering back down only to be unleashed again when you least expect it.

Michael Cragg – The Guardian