Send "Taken by Trees " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Feels so unnatural-- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, too. The late qawwali legend has earned the admiration of singers as different as Jeff Buckley, Eddie Vedder, and Devendra Banhart. On 1989's The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack, he also worked with Peter Gabriel, who ended up releasing six of Khan's albums on his own Real World label. With so much indie culture these past few years stuck in the 1980s, Gabe fave raves Vampire Weekend are simply the most collegiate of recent bands returning to Toto's "Africa" for inspiration. Khan's native Pakistan has been comparatively overlooked.Victoria Bergsman's recorded output to date is almost quintessentially Swedish. With the Concretes, she introduced Diana Ross shimmy to Mazzy Star haze, staying tuneful enough to soundtrack TV commercials. Lending her shy detachment to Peter Bjorn and John's world-conquering "Young Folks", she participated in a moment likely to define Swedish pop for many casual listeners the way Ace of Base or ABBA used to serve as shorthand for the peace-loving nation's catchiest export. Bergsman's debut album as Taken by Trees, 2007's Open Field, uses the full expanse of PB&J-er Björn Yttling's production (plus a songwriting credit from Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell) to evoke a gorgeously austere northern landscape, the kind of place where you appreciate the sun all the more because it shines so sparingly....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| You might recognise Victoria Bergsman's distinctive voice from Peter Bjorn And John's Young Folks. East Of Eden is her second solo album under the guise of Taken By Trees. Apparently recorded in Pakistan with local musicians contributing to the album, the whole record has a real, well, eastern feel. With chanting, rhythmic drums and eerie flutes cleverly weaved into it, Victoria Bergsman's other-worldly, breathy vocals suit this sound perfectly. The album kicks off with the haunting flute of To Lose Someone before Bergsman's melancholy vocals start. The rhythmic percussion and flute continue to dominate the song and the backing vocals are Pakistani; it gives you a good idea as to how the album will continue. Greyest Love Of All is a definite stand out track; a beautiful melancholy number about thinking the grass is always greener, with a rhythmic melody that is strangely catchy. There are a couple of songs on the album that are a tad indulgent; Wapas Karna for example is purely sung by Pakistani musicians and whilst it should fit the feel of the album, it might just be a step too far for some listeners. But the interesting tempo and melody of My Boys and the return of Bergsman's vocals bring it back on track....full text |
| Independent |
| Formerly the vocalist with The Concretes – though perhaps best known for her work on Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks" – Victoria Bergsman was lured by her love of singers such as Abida Parveen and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to record in Pakistan with local musicians, the results furnishing her second album as Taken by Trees. By all accounts, it was a fairly fraught experience, with Bergsman and guitarist Andreas Söderström having to masquerade as a married couple in order to fend off the unwanted attentions of local men who regarded the unattached singer as "common property"; and even the local musicians took some persuading to accept a woman in charge of the recording sessions. But she managed to create an album of often surpassing beauty, delivering songs of love and loss such as "Watch the Waves" and "To Lose Someone" in a wan, plaintive manner over beds of gently puttering percussion, funky acoustic guitar and breaths of flute, with subtle contrails of Eastern violin, warm harmonium drones and beguiling local vocals entwining delicately around the arrangements. A version of Animal Collective's "My Girls" – here changed to "My Boys" – is set to a stately, dipping rhythm of xylophone and percussion, while AC's Noah Lennox repays the favour by adding backing vocals to "Anna"....full text |
| Nme |
| From the vantage point of 2008, it is all too also easy to dismiss the whole disco era which Hercules And Love Affair evoke. Viewed retrospectively through a prism of Studio 54, Saturday Night Fever and your local ’70s revival night, disco doesn’t so much suck as spew great stinking chunks of cheese. This is the sound of the Bee Gees. This is the source of all the celebrity/cocaine bullshit that still passes for glamour in certain retarded nightclubs. This is a wet Friday night in Romford, drunk on WKD, fending off formation-dancing hen parties to the sound of Ottawan’s ‘DISCO’. While wearing a comedy afro.However, as any serious student of dance music history – say, Hercules And Love Affair’s mainman Andrew Butler, or his DFA patrons James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy – knows, disco was once as punk as, well, punk....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| It would be a mistake to see Hercules and Love Affair as the next now thing to roll off the DFA product line. For one thing, Brooklyn DJ Andy Butler started work on his ambitious debut album more than four years ago, during an innocent collaboration with friend Antony Hegarty. But plenty of new music takes years to properly ferment. No, the real reason Butler’s nu-disco sounds so out of time is that there’s not much nu about it. While most disco revivalists can’t shake the self-awareness of our age, Hercules and Love Affair is a sincere and sumptuous stab at the mirrorball splendor of the 1970s. Nothing sums up the difference between the current fad’s inhibitions and Butler’s lack thereof like the album’s lead single, “Blind.” Along with a flamboyant Antony leading the way, Butler takes direct aim at the sort of diva disco that was both the locus of the genre’s biggest mainstream successes as well as a considerable repository of its excesses. Antony laments (with energy!) about how the stars, and the potential for stardom, he saw as a child grew dimmer the closer he got: “To see you now / To hear you now / I can look outside myself / And I must examine my breath and look inside / Because I feel blind / Because I feel blind.” Between Antony’s spot-on stabs of drama (not to mention a couple of choice “mmmmms” and “ooooohs”), a galloping clavichord battles a trumpet over a pulsing Moroder-style electro groove. “Blind” will undoubtedly go down as one of 2008’s best songs....full text |
Taken by Trees lyrics
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