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Lots of people write storytelling songs about trains and set it to acoustic music and do pretty harmonies, but First Aid Kit transcends that cliché. Their songs sound like they’ve gone away and seen too much and come back tired but still alive. Their music kind of has its own way of breathing: filled with tension for a little while until it goes over the edge and exhales while the instrumental parts just seem to grow. This part of every few songs of theirs is most thrilling in concert, when Klara plays guitar so intensely you’d think it’s her only way of communicating, while Johanna stands perfectly still and lets her voice carry out so that it seems kind of infinite, or like it’s been waiting to come out for forever, and I kind of can’t help imagining that it comes from under the ground up through her mouth, or that a little part of the sky exists in her diaphragm or something. They can sound like freaking angels, or like women demanding life’s answers and who can make Patti Smith cry."
Tavi interviews First Aid Kit on RookieFirst Aid Kit is a Swedish folk duo composed of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, born in 1990 and 1993, respectively. Their father, Benkt Söderberg (formerly Svensson), was in the
1980s Swedish rock group Lolita Pop (Swedish Wikipedia page through Google translation;
fan-made discography in English).
The sisters grew up listening to The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, Television and David Bowie being played by their parents, and they say their vocals are "
inspired by Björk, Billie Holiday and Judy Garland" (print view of
an interview with The Sun). Singing together since they were girls,
they covered a song by Fleet Foxes in 2008 (compare with
the original version), which got them lots of attention on the internet. That same year,
they released an EP called
Drunken Trees (
sample track with a fan-made video). The EP got expanded into a mini-LP and was re-released by UK-based Wichita Recordings, home to Bright Eyes, a favorite of the sisters. The sisters recorded their first album,
The Big Black & Blue in 2010 (
sample video), and the next year
toured with Bright Eyes. First Aid Kit's dream of working with
producer Mike Mogis, a
Saddle Creek staple. That album is
The Lion's Roar (
title track video).
But this is skipping over why Patti Smith was crying during First Aid Kit's performance of
Patti's own song. First Aid Kit were invited to perform at the 2011
Polar Music Prize ceremony, where
Patti Smith was an award recipient for "[demonstrating] how much rock’n'roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock’n'roll".
Bonus: 51 First Aid Kit videos, including interviews and live performances,
uploaded by YouTube account Drunken Trees, a First Aid Kit fan channel.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:07 AM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]