We are often expected to be silent about our sorrows, to get over them quickly, but inner processes know no time and life becomes harder if we do not face our shadows.
When experiencing inner abandonment, emotional low blows and the inevitability of certain experiences, all you can do is to try and bring your own pain into the world, transform it into something beautiful - something worthwhile"
I have often thought of the words by Sierra Leonean story teller Usifu Jalloh: “ We are all born from the darkness of a woman.” There was a promise there, that at the end of this darkness there is life. And it has made me reflect on what it means to face my own darkness alone as a woman - because women are not encouraged to feel that alone, by themselves, they are enough, nor are they supposed to wander off into the darkness. What could we find there?
On a Woman alone, Mariama sings through encounters with dark feelings. It is said that when they come up, they come up to be seen, felt and let go, not to be suppressed and rejected. But how can we bear to feel things that we cannot release once and for all? How do we navigate societies and structures which repeatedly hurt, marginalize, traumatize and oppress some of us? How do you heal from a persistent condition and how does it shape the way we relate to others, to ourselves? Is it possible to give ourselves grace, love and kindness while navigating these feelings? Can we promise to create a place within and for ourselves that is so unshakably soft and compassionate that we always feel safe there? How do we transition from heaviness back into lightness?
"Shadows & Dark s the first release to the mini album a Woman alone. It is about grief and the overwhelming pain of loss, when all you want is to hide and fade. Written during long lockdown nights of a Berlin winter, it reflects on darkness, sorrow and everyday uphill battles, mental health and psychological survival. Written from the edge of a cliff, to resist the pull of the abyss. I did not jump, but I had to watch others who did."
On a Woman alone thoughts and feelings condense into songs, poems and harmonies that pull at the heartstrings, but don't seek to provide answers.
“These days there are so many sources that offer us advice on how to be better, happier, stronger, more successful, how to overcome anything negative in no time. But we don’t really know how to hold space for reality when it becomes raw, uncomfortable, unbearable. Whoever listens to this, I hope they feel that I am in the trenches with them.”
Last but not least, the title a Woman alone is borrowed from a short story collection by the South African-Botswana writer Bessie Head, whose intensely precise and poetic observation of personal and political conditions remains unique even far beyond her death. “Her writing is so full of life and quiet observations at the same time. It has kept me company in a few of these dark nights.”
credits
released November 24, 2021
Composed and written by Mariama
Recorded by Mariama and Manu Schlindwein
Mixed and mastered by Manu Schlindwein
Drums, Percussion, arrangement on Promise, Beat a Woman alone, drum programming and Bass on Still here: Manu Schlindwein
Synth recordings and String arrangements on Shadows and Dark: Mya Audrey
Bass on Promise and im/possible: Shanice Ruby Bennett
Freetown, Cologne, Paris and Berlin - travelling is her second nature and inspires the singer songwriter. Her songs are
infused with a unique warm, delicate sound, carrying emotional, personal, authentic stories.
With roots that stretch far across Africa and Europe, Mariama is a nomad in soul, pushes genre limits while finding and creating her own space in the musical world of a global Africa....more