Victoria Bergsman’s voice will be familiar, even if her or her current band’s name isn’t. As a member of the Concretes, her “You Can’t Hurry Love” was featured on an iPod commercial, and her voice was featured on the unavoidable “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn & John. The “Bjorn” produces Bergsman on her first post-Concretes album, focusing on her voice, which presents all the vulnerability and desire to be tougher that a Swedish aficionado of girl groups would offer. Bjorn Yttling’s production is as far from the Concretes’ indie version of Phil Spector’s wall of sound, isolating her voice and its accompanying sadness and lonely desire. On “Open Field,” the keyboard backing is often so subtle that it sounds like overtones of her deeply echoed voice. The song often sounds a cappella, with only an offhandedly tapped snare as obvious accompaniment. Vibes trace the chord structure for the Japanese-sounding “Cedar Trees”—complete with lovely flute melody—in which Bergsman announces that she’ll wait patiently while the man who “drove my pain away / and left it hanging among those cedar trees” decides if he’ll be her friend or not.

The spare sound makes the album lovely, but it obscures the popness of the songs. It’s easy to imagine how fuller productions could make these songs more immediately accessible and fun. As is, the production makes the songs seem remote and private, as if we’re evesdropping on someone’s conversation with herself. That doesn’t diminish Open Field at all, but it means it’s not music for all occasions.