You might already know Victoria Bergsman as the front-woman for the strong rock jingles of The Concretes. Or maybe you know her as the soft female vocals on Peter Bjorn & John’s 2006 hit “Young Folks.”

But you didn’t know the Swedish singer went solo and flew out to Pakistan to record her latest album.

Under the moniker “Taken By Trees,” her second solo album is a blend of floaty, Northern European vocals and the traditional sounds of Pakistan. Bergsman said she went East because she is a “fan” of Sufi music and a lover of such artists as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

For her, “It was very emotionally difficult to cope with the country’s differences,” but “When you take the music into a studio I believe the creativity and the playfulness of the studio often gets lost. But I decided I wanted to go somewhere and preferably very far away…And also I was listening a lot to Asian music especially from India and Pakistan… I felt like I wanted to go there and see how my music would interact with the Asian music and their tunes.”

On the album, East of Eden, which is out from the UK’s Rough Trade on September 8th, the sounds of Pakistan delicately filter up under her vocals through subtle chants, hand-claps, and the pluckings of traditional instruments. Yet it doesn’t feel like some cheesy forced “World Music” collaboration.

National Geographic did a short documentary on her sojourn abroad which is fascinating:

Until September 8th, check out the track “Watch the Waves” on Bergsman’s MySpace page or listen to the full album streaming here.

The Album Cover for "East of Eden." Credit: Rough Trade