Altsounds - Taken By Trees - East of Eden [Album]

For her second album under the Taken by Trees moniker, Swedish chanteuse Victoria Bergsman, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Andreas Söderström, relocated to Pakistan. Here they worked with local musicians and singers to record “East of Eden.” Suspicions of this being another Western musician indulging in cultural tourist dilettantism however are easily quashed by the music itself. It succeeds, almost effortlessly, in creating a subtle and organic blend of East and West that is entrancing.

Bergman’s voice retains the languid detachment of her work with The Concretes and on Peter, Bjorn and John’s ‘Young Folks’ but here it is set against eastern flutes, gently plucked classical guitar and sparse percussive drums - along with wordless and gently ululating Sufi singing. The production (by Studio’s Dan Lissvik) infuses the whole album with a warm, natural glow and grace.

The combination works so well it doesn’t feel unnatural or a forced collaboration. In fact it doesn’t feel like a collaboration at all – it as though these musicians have been playing together for decades. For songs such as ’To Lose Someone’ and ’Anna,’ this inter-cultural mix adds a sedate air of wistful reverie that is timeless and almost rootless (the guitar work could easily be Spanish or Cuban). ’Watch The Waves’ has Bergsman at her most child-like in voice and words: “I didn’t know how much I loved you / until today / Now I love you endlessly.” On paper it sounds trite but the simplicity of the lyric is lifted by the achingly beautiful setting and the innocence of the delivery. Despite the title, being in love is less of a tidal wave, but rather being bathed in gentle spring rain.

It’s a short album – nine songs and only thirty minutes – and with a few detours from its chosen path: ’Tidens Gang’ is a short folk-lament sung in Swedish and ’Wapas Karna’ is a wheezy field recording of a Sufi singer. The latter may be the most authentic of the songs on the album but also the most mono-cultural and therefore feels one-sided. It actually highlights how well the eastern and western sounds are unified on the rest of the record. Also of note is Bergsman’s cover of Animal Collective’s ‘My Girls,’ re-written here as ‘My Boys.’ The sentiment of the original is touchingly preserved against a gentle pitter-patter rhythm (Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox also guests as backing vocalist on ‘Anna’).

Far from a ‘what-I-did-on-my-holidays’ cultural curio, this will be a contender for some as a stand-out album of the year. The gentle-paced and often rarefied loveliness might be too wearying for some but I find its delicate charms difficult to resist.