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Words: Everett True
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The music is hushed, sparse. The melodies are
gorgeous: the ache of a familiar voice, the merest
silhouette of echoed piano and an occasional drum
beat. The mood is solemn, but joyous: like listening
into an intensely private rhapsody. You imagine snow:
snow, piled in drifts six feet high alongside Detroit
kerbsides; you imagine woods: bare feet running freely
through bracken and past dragonfly-infested pools;
you think of cigarette smoke pluming upwards and
funereal dancing and a youthful brass section fleshing
out these bare bones of songs.
But you don’t want any of that; not really. These
songs are quite, quite special as they are.
“I liked the sound of the name because it
has a double meaning,” explains singer Victoria
Bergsman. “To be taken away and to be moved.
I’ve been fascinated by trees because they’re so
old and stationary, and yet they continually change.
I built treehouses at college. There are a lot of
treehouses in Sweden.”
Man, this music is so special. A link sent to
a website, wherein a stand-alone media player
whispered out magic – four songs, ‘Tell Me’, ‘Too
Young’, the yearning ‘Lost And Found’ and selfexplanatory
‘Hours Pass Like Centuries’. I’d heard
a rumour that Victoria had parted company with The
Concretes – the incredible Swedish band she’d helped
start in 1995 as an all-female trio – but I didn’t want to
listen too close, lest I grow too upset. The Concretes
have been so magical to me these past years.
But this – Taken By Trees, the first glimmering
of Victoria’s solo work – this is so wonderful. I could
listen to it on repeat for a week without sleeping
and still not grow tired, swept away by its aching,
wonderful loneliness.
“I’ve been doing this for about a year,” explains
Victoria. “I started to record the songs properly
sometime during June. I didn’t think I’d try any more
music after The Concretes. It was a year ago I told
the band I was leaving – I don’t enjoy playing live
any more. I think I questioned too much and that was
very tiring for the band, why we’d play somewhere,
and how the stage was made up. I’d rather be home
and write songs and then pick venues that are special.
We’d started to lose our playfulness. It had become
too much of a business.”
There’s a humanity and intimacy behind Victoria’s
music that has far more in common with the gentle
experimental bent of Japan’s Maher Shalal Hash Baz
and Tenniscoats then any of the mainstream bands
The Concretes used to share label space with. As any
music lover could tell you, it was the vulnerable Mo
Tucker side of The Velvet Underground that was the
most fascinating.
“I couldn’t afford too many musicians,” Victoria
explains. “I had two on the recording. I wanted to
have flute and strings on one song, but was worried
that would overdo it.”
www.takenbytrees.com |
