Victoria Bergsman's reputation precedes her, but she wishes that weren't the case. American audiences will recognize her as the female vocalist on last year's hit song "Young Folks," a duet recorded by the Swedish band Peter Bjorn & John. With its theatrical drum roll and carefree whistled hook, the track migrated quickly from music blogs to TV's "Gossip Girl," with a stop in a Target ad along the way. The lyrics are a dialogue between two people who hit it off even though they are reluctant to let themselves go.
"There's something in it for everyone," Bergsman says from her hometown of Stockholm, where she and PBJ's Björn Yttling first became friends nine years ago. Reflecting on the song's success, she compared it to a "kinder egg," a European candy that has a small toy inside. "It's a thing you can build, and play, and still have," she says, even after the chocolate is gone.
The analogy works: The indelible whistle on "Young Folks" is sweet to the point of cartoonish, but Bergsman's verses are something special. The weary optimism of her delivery is distinctive and unforgettable, fresh musically because it is subtle emotionally. "If I was just a happy girl singing it, that would be weird," she acknowledges. "A girl who was totally content could have been strange."
As Bergsman prepares to tour the United States, including a stop at the Museum of Fine Arts tomorrow night, in support of her new project, Taken by Trees, she seems eager to distance herself from "Young Folks." After quitting her previous band, the Concretes, in 2006, she is determined to launch a solo career. Whistling isn't part of the package.
The debut from Taken by Trees is called "Open Field," and, as the title suggests, it is a spare and pretty concept album. The instrumentation is mostly limited to piano and drums, with recourse to a few guitar notes. Against the silhouettes of these percussive elements, Bergsman's vocals meander like watercolors, sometimes pooling in schoolgirl chants, sometimes thinning out from melody into speech.
"I felt with my album when it was finished that it could suit a film," says Bergsman, who made several short films when she was an art student. "It would be great to have the music behind someone walking around in a landscape. I want it to be around beautiful pictures and moving pictures." She says she was inspired by the 1975 Australian film "Picnic at Hanging Rock," which is heavy on nature shots and romantic Edwardian dresses.
Bergsman, 30, is known for her own extensive dress collection, and Swedish designers have started lending dresses for her shows. "Fashion is very interesting aesthetically, and it can affect people in different ways and different directions," she muses. "I don't want it to be obvious, [like] 'Of course, that music; of course, that dress.' " She says she'd rather play up contrasts between her appearance and her sound.
Accordingly, Bergsman has matched her vintage dresses to a big, bold live performance.
"I want to make people listen to the album very loud," she says with sudden energy. "I want people to feel it physically - the drums are very hard, you know. The show is not very long, and I want people to have something they can take and touch."
The track "Julia" (pronounced YOO-lee-uh) offers a preview of the experience. The song sprouts up from a single, pounding piano note. The repetitive, nearly annoying tone mirrors the insistence in Bergsman's voice as she sings a brief speech to a friend. As the song progresses, cymbal washes, dual vocals, and a simple guitar line drape over the note, but it never disappears.
"She seems to know exactly where she's going these days, and I admire that," says fellow Swedish singer Jens Lekman in an e-mail. "It wasn't until I saw her perform with her new band that I fully appreciated Taken by Trees. I know she suffers from terrible stage fright, but the performance was perfect and touched me deeply. It was perhaps the finest show I saw last year."
Bergsman herself makes no mention of stage fright. In a moment of candor, Bergsman confesses she has "a very big ego," and it doesn't seem to be a mistranslation. The way she tells it, 11 years in a band with seven other people can make an egoist out of anyone. She formed the Concretes when she was 15, with her friend Maria Eriksson. The band later swelled to eight people, and the "democratic" decision-making in the group eventually became tiresome.
"We were very eager to try out many things, and maybe we shouldn't have done them," Bergsman says thoughtfully, adding that her new album is a reaction to what she saw as excess. The band, she explains, would often overload on instrumental tracks to give everyone a chance to participate. Now, as a solo artist, she can start with just an instrumental part and emphasize it with one other instrument - "not 20 things," she quips.
"I learned that I can't compromise when it comes to art," she says of her eventual departure from the band.
The certainty of Bergsman's pronouncements doesn't come from anger or angst, she says. She sees her album as one about yearning, full of restless lyrics like "I am most dissatisfied/ You can tell this looking in my eyes" and "Hours pass like centuries/ When you settle for a change that will take you far away/ From where you are today."
"I have a sense that people think the album is just sad. It's not," she says. "For me it's very hopeful. I want to explore things. I'm not a very serious person - I am trying to be serious."
