Taken by Trees Go 'East of Eden' to Record in Pakistan

When Victoria Bergsman (the voice of Peter, Bjorn and John's 'Young Folks') set about recording her new Taken by Trees album, she set her sights on an unexpected destination: Pakistan. "I had a very strong vision about how I wanted to travel to Pakistan and record," Bergsman tells Spinner. Against the recommendation of her Swedish government, she packed her bags, a stash of songs and Andreas Soderstrom -- her engineer and sole accompanying musician -- and off she went.

Bergsman says she knew the risk involved but was determined to fulfill her creative desire, which was to have local Sufi musicians guest on the album and just, you know, see the sights, smell the smells, capture the sounds. If things got too hairy, she thought, she'd just bail, but instead, she has an album to show for it. Taken by Trees' 'East of Eden' will be released on September 8th and it sounds exotic, intriguing, even mystical at times. She really did it; but that's not to say it was easy.

"I think the whole culture and language aspect was difficult, to come through and be understood, and to understand," says Bergsman. "To understand how people live their lives and what they value in life, how women are treated and how women always seemed to be in the background -- that was very difficult to handle for me. The whole infrastructure and society felt so unorganized. For example, the electricity went out several times a day, which made the recording process hard."

Sounds like a priceless adventure. But someone should've told her that if she really wanted to make the music sound authentic, her Animal Collective cover ('My Girls' or, as it appears on her album, 'My Boys'), could've been recorded in the much less dangerous territory of Brooklyn, N.Y. Although then she would've had to worry about hipsters.