Taken By Trees: Open Field : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Some people loved Peter Bjorn and John's “Young Folks” for the incredible bongos. Some loved it for the really annoying whistle hook. But it's safe to say most people loved it for Victoria Bergsman's voice, the purr of a melancholic barfly with the bad taste of too many late nights in her mouth. For Swedish pop fans, Bergsman is a long-familiar presence from singing with the superb Stockholm collective the Concretes. But her first solo project, under the name Taken by Trees, has no whistling and nothing remotely danceable -- just soft, stripped-down Swedish cafe folk, recorded in just six days and produced by Bjorn (on loan from Peter and John). It's mostly Bergsman's frail voice, acoustic guitar or piano, with flourishes like the xylophone in “Cedar Trees.” “Hours Pass Like Centuries” has a piano tapping a la “Chopsticks,” awesome kettledrum rolls and a lone clicking castanet. She seems to sing about vegetation a lot, making friends with trees especially. But part of what makes Open Field work is there's not much content, lyrical or otherwise -- instead of getting heavy on you, she just makes you hum “Lost and Found” and give serious thought to opening that second bottle of red.