Taken By Trees – East Of Eden

East Of Eden is an interesting album. It has a different and interesting back story, Victoria Bergsman (Swedish indie popper, formerly of The Concretes, main woman behind Taken By Trees) took some demos for her new album and decided to do something completely different: she went to Pakistan to record it. Seemingly because India was too played out and mainstream, and there was a little more mystique in the neighbouring Pakistan (not to mention civil instability, and a growing presence of terrorist group the Taliban in rural areas). There are other little parts to the story, like how she and her musical partner Andreas Soderstrom didn’t know anyone there other than through the internet, how Bergsman’s gender was a hindrance to working with the local musicians, but that’s the gist.East Of Eden is an okay album. There are soothingly melodic moments, as on ‘Anna’ and ‘Greyest Love Of All’, with softly melodic percussion, whistling woodwind instruments, grouped backing vocals, twirling picked strings and other lovely washes of sound. There are mash-ups of”¦ well actually what to call it? I don’t know what Pakistani music usually sounds like, so I can’t say with any great certainty that that’s what you’re hearing. So I need to be more general, so, Middle Eastern music? Which is reductive, but it speaks well of this album that its the average listener who might struggle to identify what they’re hearing. There isn’t any sense that the Middle Eastern qualities here have been treated with a patronising exotic ‘otherness’, some lame arrogant approach, it melds well with the Western elements. Anyway, there are mash-ups of the delicate melancholia of Bergsman and the warm vibrant musical styles of the people she recorded with. ‘Watch The Waves’ ripples along in a percussive shimmering wall, whether it’s stringed or percussion instruments, and Bergsman sings in that angular way she has that still manages to sound lovely and aching. ‘Day By Day’ is even more percussive, with a xylophone and flute-type instrument picking out melody, Bergsman’s voice is double tracked, and it all sounds like a very pleasant party.An interesting thing happens when you listen to ‘Wapas Karnas’, which seems to have been entirely performed by the local Pakistani musicians, with even a female vocal. The vocal is what you would typically expect if you’ve seen any Bollywood films, off-key and warbling, and often elicits the same reaction as nails being dragged down a chalk board (which is mainly a reaction of Western ears I think), but what you come to notice is the shared qualities it and Bergsman’s voice have. I was describing her voice as angular just now, and really in a lot of ways it’s quite odd and grating, almost meeting melody edge-on and scraping along it.What really works on East Of Eden is the warmth it exudes, the field recordings of street noise or people talking in the street are done in such a way as to draw you in and soothe. Just the general direction of the songs push towards a happy glistening place too, the melodies are pleasurable, the very timbre of the instruments are warm and inviting. And Bergsman’s voice wafts through, a mixture of musty introspection and blissful peace. No surprise really that she covers Animal Collective’s ‘My Girls’ (changed to ‘My Boys’ for her partner and their pet), positive happy vibes pervade.The thing is, though, East Of Eden isn’t long enough: as evidenced by short song lengths, there's almost a feeling like there wasn't enough material. The different cultural styles meld okay, but don’t really get under the skin, and there’s not quite the sparkle and excitement you might be looking for.mp3:> Taken By Trees: "Watch The Waves (Memory Tapes Version)" mp3:> Taken By Trees: "Watch The Waves" (via Stereogum) Taken By Trees Official Site