Listeners may recognize Victoria Bergsman's tender vocals from her previous work as the lead singer of The Concretes, and as a featured singer for Peter, Bjorn and John's hit single "Young Folks," but now the Swedish vocalist moves to the beat of her own musical aspirations. In 2007, Bergsman began her solo project, Taken By Trees, with the release of her debut album Open Field, a lush demonstration of her folk-pop sensibilities. Taking the project a step further for her follow-up, she traveled both literally and figuratively into new musical territory.
Inspired by her long-standing admiration of Pakistani artists Abida Parveen and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bergsman traveled to Pakistan to record her sophomore album, East of Eden. With the assistance of producer and engineer Andreas Soderstrom, she gathered amazing local musicians such as Sain Muhammad Ali. Combining Soderstrom's resonant guitar work and Bergsman's soft-spoken lyrics with recordings of local Pakistani instrumentation and vocals, East of Eden is a marriage of airy folk-pop with traditional Sufi Qawwali devotional music. As if to emphasize her fascination with combining Eastern and Western musical styles, Bergsman has included a cover of "My Girls," the recent hit from Animal Collective, whose own Noah Lennox contributes backing vocals to "Anna."
Copyright 2010 XPN
