THE LION'S ROAR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl5FdvRR4pQ
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo composed of sisters Johanna (b. October 31, 1990) and Klara (b. January 8, 1993) Söderberg, whose close vocal harmonies and woodsy, folk-influenced songwriting take influence from the likes of Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom. Hailing from Enskede, a southern suburb of Stockholm, the siblings began composing songs in 2007. Their 2008 YouTube video cover of the song "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes spread their name rapidly on the Internet: the sisters subsequently appeared alongside Fleet Foxes performing the song in a concert in the Netherlands.
Starting out in 2007, the sisters sent a demo tape of their home-recorded "Tangerine" to a Swedish radio station, which gave it airplay that summer. Later that year the duo signed to Rabid Records, a label co-owned by the Swedish electronic duo The Knife. April 2008 saw the release of the debut EP Drunken Trees in Sweden. The London-based Wichita Records label reissued the EP one year later, bolstering its track list with a cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" and videos of three songs performed live in a Swedish forest. During their early years the duo had a collection of songs posted on the social networking site MySpace, one of which was "Cross Oceans", a re-recording of which later appeared on Drunken Trees.
They released their debut album, The Big Black & The Blue, in 2010; the release was followed by an extensive tour (around 100 shows) of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, headlining the Thursday night at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona. After playing a concert in Nashville the duo was approached by Jack White, who requested them to record a single for his Third Man Records series. In February 2011 the duo collaborated with Bright Eyes during their performance of "Lua".
In January 2012 the band released their second album, The Lion's Roar, produced by Mike Mogis. The album was critically acclaimed upon release and went straight to No. 1 in Sweden on the week of release and No. 35 in the UK.
On August 3, 2012, the band performed at the Lollapalooza 2012 Festival. They also performed at Bestival on September 7, 2012 and the Berlin Festival on September 8, 2012, before returning to the United States to play Austin City Limits Music Festival on October 12, 2012.
First Aid Kit have performed twice at the Polar Music Prize. In 2011, they performed the song "Dancing Barefoot" for the winner Patti Smith and in 2012, they performed "America" for the winner Paul Simon. Their song "The Lion's Roar" was featured in episode 2 of series 4 of Misfits.
In 2013, they were awarded the Nordic Music Prize for 2012.
"Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" (cover)...for Fleet Foxes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMrqBldlqzA
I Met Up With The King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGRG-U8kI2o
Hard Believer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDG8xqz7BIk
Blue..some nice pedal steel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWrX9PJAOs
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Band Of The Week:
First Aid Kit
by Freddie Campion
“The vibe we’re going for is that Polaroid, analog look,” explains 21-year-old Johanna Söderberg, who, along with her younger sister Klara, is one half of Swedish nu-folk duo First Aid Kit. “We love the feel of seventies art and photography. Just anything old looking.”
To fans of the pair’s full-length debut, 2010’s The Big Black & the Blue, this should come as no surprise. Filled with wistful acoustic ballads, it paints a picture of laid-back pastoral whimsy and has the two most important hallmarks of any jaunt into seventies-inspired folk: nimble finger-picking and watertight harmonies. Not to mention the kind of delivery that gives every lyric a Southern twang and trademark Joan Baez–vocal quiver.
However, for their sophomore record The Lion’s Roar, which will be released in January, the Söderbergs say they wanted to do something with a little more bite, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Certainly from the look of the title track’s video, unveiled last week, it’s clear they’re eyeing darker territory—instead of taking sun-kissed walks through barley fields in matching white dresses (as they did in “Ghost Town,” their last outing with director and fellow Swede Mats Udd) they can be seen traipsing through one of Sweden’s national forests in what looks like a Druid funeral procession.
“In terms of lyrics and instrumentation it’s probably one of the darkest songs we’ve ever written,” Johanna says from Los Angeles, the day before they were to leave to shoot another video in Joshua Tree National Park (although, for fear she’ll spoil the surprise, she refuses to reveal any more than that.)
“We recorded the last album at home in Johanna’s bedroom,” Klara continues, “so having a string quartet wasn’t really possible. Now we can build the wall of sound we were always looking for.”
As you’d imagine, the duo have never been afraid of citing their American influences (“We never listened to much Swedish folk music,” Johanna adds. “We preferred people like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell”), but their homeland did offer some inspiration for this latest album, mostly fueling a new fascination with the dark and gloomy.
“Our parents used to read us stories about trolls when we were growing up,” Johanna explains. “We like that kind of spooky, unreal, magical feeling of Swedish folklore.”
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The Big Black & Blue" 2010
First Aid Kit is a Swedish folk group that is garnering attention for their debut, The Big Black & The Blue. The group consists of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg. Though their talent, strong vocals, and intelligent lyrics might lead you to think otherwise–the girls are only seventeen and nineteen respectively. Below is their single “When I Grow Up,” which is a cover of Fever Ray (half of The Knife). For those attending Austin City Limits (like SFCritic), the sisters will be playing–and surely are not to be missed. I’ve also included their music video for “Ghost Town.”
(Fever Ray Cover) First Aid Kit: “When I Grow Up”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKUjnyf ... r_embedded
Emmylou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPWrX9PJAOs
