Taken By Trees
East of Eden - Rough Trade
FILTER Grade: 84%

Swede Victoria Bergsman’s voice is a whisper in your ear that disappears into tundra. It sounds intimate yet evokes a sense of faraway space. Fitting, then, that Bergsman and guitarist Andreas Söderström traveled to Pakistan to infuse their Swedish folk with Sufi mysticism. Taken by Trees layers its own gleeful hand claps and open-voiced harmonies with the bamboo flute calls and mean sitar picking of Pakistani musicians. What saves this slaphappy orchestration from becoming too precious is Bergsman’s cooing, which remains chilled with Nordic frost. For example, “Watch the Waves” features a xylophone glissando that mimics waves, but the band tempers this cheesiness with an off-beat synth punch and Bergsman’s deadpan delivery. Even Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) joins the international fusion fest by chanting refrains in “Anna.” When the album resolves with “Bekännelse,” the harmonium drone and Bergsman’s murmurs do more than comfort us. She transforms a Sufi song into a lullaby and, like her simultaneously near-and-distant voice, turns a faraway place into home.