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Marta Złakowska is a Polish vocalist who started her career when she happened to meet visionary musician and maverick Tricky, in November 2017. In the past six years after she joined the band, she went on tour and later on diligently worked in the studio on several recordings before finishing When It’s Going Wrong, her arresting debut album produced by Tricky. Going back and forth on lonely train rides between her home in Krakow and the studio in Berlin, Marta became aware that her dream is finally turning to reality as the record is soon to be released.

Across the album’s nine songs, Marta embraces a broad emotional spectrum with each song revelling in its own little narrative. The pointed minimalism of the title track is staggering in its vulnerability, Marta’s tender vocals backed by only a hand drum and low guitar notes. “The album is called When It’s Going Wrong because I feel that I translate a great part of myself into that song in particular. This song feels like my baby.” After the album’s slow-burning Intro, the second track is Marta’s cover of Today by Jefferson Airplane, before bursting into a hypnotic drum’n’bass break. “It’s about this feeling of being stuck and not knowing how to get out of a situation – like there’s no escape,” she explains. “Sometimes it’s frustration, sadness, a little bit of hopelessness. These songs are about those mixed emotions.”

Among the eight tracks written by Tricky, Marta’s permanence pierces through Moving Through Water, a crowning moment in the history of female voices performing his lyrics. In a gracious homage to Tricky’s late daughter Mazy, Marta’s kaleidoscopic voice goes “I sing for my Daughter”.

The album ends with a lullaby-like cover of a Polish song, Czarno Czarny, having Marta reaffirm her roots and convene her impeccable grace.

When It’s Going Wrong is the sound of an emerging artist not only finding her creative voice but her inner power; the journey through self-doubt, hardship and uncertainty - whatever brings one to the other side. Marta remembers that moment when Tricky turned to her in the studio and quietly said: “You don’t make the music, the music makes you.