Posted on: June 15, 2012 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0
Victoria Bergsman has announced a new album for her main creative outlet, Taken By Trees. The LP, her first since 2009’s East of Eden, is called Other Worlds and will be released October 2 on Secretly Canadian. The trailer for the album is available today at Gorilla Vs. Bear.
Other Worlds is a impressionist poem for the Hawaiian Islands, where on a recent visit, Bergsman found a swell of creative inspiration. Working closely with photographer Amanda Marsalis, Victoria intimately documented her time in Hawaii gathering ideas for songs and recording nature sounds while Marsalis filmed and took photos.
The music that resulted reflects the natural beauty of the Hawaiian islands — floating in a perfectly blue pond, a kind breeze coasting off the waves, and abundant deep green foliage. The album’s dub influences are gently layered with synths and Victoria’s voice, floating along with the bass line.
Of her inspiration, Bergman says, “I remember two songs that really triggered the whole ‘Hawaiian/tropical’ album idea and kept hanging on through out the whole process of the album as sound and feel atmosphere. The first song was the instrumental track ‘Diamond Head’ by The Beach Boys and the other one is Augustos Pablo’s song ‘AP Spezial,’ also an instrumental track. Both of the songs have beautiful nature sounds added to them of waves, thunder and birds. The Beach Boys song turned me onto pedal steels and the Augustos Pablo song turned me onto the more dubby feeling.”

Producer Henning Fürst (The Tough Alliance) collaborated with Victoria on the sound and overall feel of the album to create something that felt light, cool & laid back. She also worked with longtime Taken By Trees confederate, Andreas Söderström.  Together they employed unique instruments and ambient sounds like steel drums, marimba, a thunderstorm and bird song to great effect. When Victoria got back to LA, musician Dan Horne added some grace notes as did Farmer Dave Scher (Beachwood Sparks).

Ultimately, Other Worlds aims to take the listener somewhere luscious and warm.
Taken By Trees will also play two US shows this summer. The band will perform at Gorilla vs Bear II in Dallas with Glass Candy, Chromatics, Twin Sister, Laurel Halo & others. They will also appear at the food & music party Noisette, sponsored by Noise Pop in San Francisco. Dates are listed below.
Track Listing:
Horizon
Highest High
Dreams
In Other Words
Not Like Any Other
Pacific Blue
Only You
Large
Indigo Dub
I Want You
Your Place Or Mine
Dreams (Coconut Cut)

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