Taken By Trees

Victoria Bergsman's emergence from behind the curtain of her former band, the Concretes, was quietly pronounced in 2007 with her stunning solo debut, Open Field. That album showed that her delicate voice, which often took a back seat to her former band's spirited ways, was more than enough to carry the minimal framework of Taken By Trees. For her second album, Bergsman chose not to repeat the process of working in Sweden with Björn Yettling and retreated to the exotic, foreign locale of Pakistan. Inspired by the country's tradition of Sufi music, she faced significant cultural challenges in order to achieve her vision. Recorded with sole collaborator Andreas Söderström (who acted as her spouse after a dangerous confrontation), East of Eden presents Bergsman's hushed songs arranged according to her environment and its local musicians. Featuring an array of colourful orchestration assembled by Studio's Dan Lissvik, the album certainly exposes ears to rich polyrhythms on "Day By Day," a range of flutes scaling underneath Söderström's warm classical guitar on "Watch the Waves" and of course, Bergsman's trademark docile vocals nailing the melody of Animal Collective's "My Girls" (titled "My Boys" here). An extraordinary release both in sound and story, East of Eden is easily Bergsman's greatest achievement to date but judging by her ambition, perhaps not for long.