A few weeks back, I had cause to revisit East of Eden, the second solo album from former Concretes' frontwoman Victoria Bergsman as Taken By Trees, which I found set out curbside in Brooklyn (along with albums by the Beastie Boys and Autre Ne Veut, oddly enough). Dealing with Bergsman's travels through Pakistan, the resplendent record charmed my ears when it was released in 2009, but was ultimately lost amid the shuffle of "bigger" albums from that year.
The devotional, low-key, Sufi-infused folk album was a continent removed from Bergsman's previous efforts. She left the Concretes after 2006's In Colour, and her solo debut, Open Field, produced by Peter, Bjorn & John's Björn Yttling, fell well within the Concretes' range of folky indie pop. But with her vocal talents being deployed in many an ad campaign as the female foil for the whistling zeitgeist of "Young Folks", and for her pillow-murmured read of "Sweet Child o' Mine", Bergsman's fans ran the risk of being killed softly by that voice. On Eden, Bergman expanded her reach considerably, working with working with local Pakistani players and Studio's Dan Lissvik, as well as including a guest appearance from Panda Bear. And more importantly, it sprung her from the meticulous and pristine confines of Scandinavian indie pop.
On Taken by Trees' calming and ocean-breeze-gentle Other Worlds, Bergsman sounds comfy as both world citizen and globetrotter. This go-round, she trekked down to the Hawaiian Islands, no doubt a more restful destination than Pakistan. And the resultant album sounds like someone who is taking a vacation from their vacation. "I know a place where you can go/ Where you can get back on your feet, boy," she whispers on the first single "Dreams", sounding like the most sylphlike of travel agents on one of the season's most choice Balearic numbers.
Bergsman, working here with producer Henning Fürst (of the Tough Alliance), cites the Beach Boys' instrumental "Diamond Head" and an Augustus Pablo song as inspiration for the record, both of which are obvious from the opening "Horizon", wherein washes of Pacific Ocean tides, Tiki-drink percussion, and gentle analog synth sounds all eddy about Bergsman's voice as she sings of missing the sight of her beloved's face. "Keeping it real, as real as it gets," she sings on "Highest High", sounding as unwound as could be, as if she's swinging from a hammock down in Margaritaville, watching a rainstorm between slats of bamboo. There's a gentle sway to the song, intertwining some Pablo-esque melodica with Farmer Dave Scher's keening pedal steel, one of the album's secret weapons.
After the first three songs, the album sags ever so slightly, as a tropical torpor settles over the first half of the disc. But by the time "Large" comes up, the pace quickens just enough, a disco-dub beat propelling things along, with some stabbing strings and steel guitar glissades livening the track. And the rippling instrumental of "Indigo Dub" is a lovely interlude. At times Bergsman's childlike voice reminds me of the naïf sound of former múm singer Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir and the Nico-esque intonation of Peaking Lights' Indra Dunis, yet Taken By Trees' intent feels ever so slightly different from those two. There's a trace of desire and the wobbly knees of newfound love to be gleaned in Bergsman's voice, cooing, "Baby, I want you all the time," on "I Want You".
A caucasian girl going down to the Tropics is definitely not a new musical trope, but the winsome Other Worlds does strike a balance between two similar efforts: Brenda Ray's Walatta and Lizzy Mercier Descloux's Mambo Nassau. In the former, a British post-punker recorded laidback takes over old reggae riddims, where on the latter, a French no-waver trekked down to the Bahamas to put a decidedly spiky spin on Kool and the Gang, calypso, and Bob Marley. Staying on just this side of a Corona beer commercial, it sounds like a continuation of Bergsman's realizations carried over from East of Eden, in that a change in latitude brings about a change in attitude.
