First Aid Kit – I Met Up With The King

First Aid Kit are slowly seeping their way into the British consciousness, and this ace single explains why – a simple yet clever video, a great tune that crawls under your skin and gets you in the heart. It’s out on the 8th of March from the usual places.

I initially fell in love with Swedish sisters, First Aid Kit, a few months back having caught their amazing cover of Fleet Foxes’ Tiger Mountain Peasant Song over on YouTube. I was instantly struck by the undeniable talent of these two young girls, the both of them possessing fantastically strong voices, as well as some enviable finger picking guitar skills. Alas, I was super excited when TGTF were sent their debut album for review this week. Released next January and titled The Big Black and the Blue, Klara and Johanna are certainly set on sprinkling folktastic joy upon their audience in 2010.

Track one, In The Morning, introduces listeners’ to the siblings’ beautifully rich, now trademark harmonies. A stripped back number, the sisters’ textured voices pleasantly wash over each other as a humble acoustic strums in the distance. The hearty thuds of the album start to kick in around track three – Sailor Song. Quite an apt name for this sea shanty of a number – the raw percussion and melodic acoustic ultimately spinning it into a real folk foot stomper. The fairytale-like Waltz For Richard, meanwhile, displays Klara and Johanna’s crisp, yodelling voices to perfection, as a fragile finger picking sequence tinkers in the distance. The flute-led I Met Up With A King showcases First Aid Kit’s fantastically charming lyricism, as well as their surprisingly gruffer-sided vocals. Track six, Ghost Town, is a haunting ballad placed amid the album, complimented by a weezing accordion, as well as a starry piano which hovers above the song’s sedative chorus. A Window Open’s swaying melody, meanwhile, has itself an element of woodland waltz about it, while the light and fluffy Will of the River’s acoustic wisps wrap the album up more than nicely.

First Aid Kit have an undoubted ability to capture an essence of magic in their music. Their earthy soundscape makes you feel like walking through a green forest in a fairisle jumper, surrounded by mystical fairies as friends. Their perfectly crafted folk is dream-like, warming to the bones, and most importantly, genuine. One criticism I’d share would be the girls’ heavy reliance on their harmonies, resulting in the vox growing a little heavy on some tracks. But the talent these Soderberg sisters possess is sparkling, and all they can do from here is grow and grow. Long live the First Aid Kit!

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MP3: First Aid Kit – You’re Not Coming Home Tonight

Watch the video to the beautifully tumbly Hard Believer below.

First Aid Kit’s The big Black and the Blue is out on 25th January 2010 on Wichita Records. Pre-order it now.

The beautiful First Aid Kit are back on the road again in February and March next year, playing some smaller venues around our fair country.

Tickets for some dates are on sale now, whilst others go on sale on Friday (20th November) at 9am. Catch the guys at:

Friday 19th February 2010 – Edinburgh – Sneaky Petes
Saturday 20th February 2010 – Glasgow King Tut’s
Monday 22nd February 2010 – Birmingham Rainbow
Tuesday 23rd February 2010 – Manchester Deaf Institute
Wednesday 24th February 2010 – Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Thursday 25th February 2010 – Stockton Georgian Theatre
Friday 26th February 2010 – Hull The Adelphi
Saturday 27th February 2010 – Nottingham Bodega
Monday 1st March 2010 – Sheffield Bungalows and Beers
Tuesday 2nd March 2010 – Norwich Arts Centre
Wednesday 3rd March 2010 – Oxford Jericho Tavern
Thursday 4th March 2010 – London Union Chapel
Saturday 6th March 2010 – Bristol Louisiana
Sunday 7th March 2010 – Southampton Hamptons
Monday 8th March 2010 – Brighton Hope

First Aid Kit – Hard Believer

It’s been a while since we’ve written anything about the wonderful First Aid Kit. This is their new single, “Hard Believer”, which is out on the 5th of October along with the new song “Waltz for Richard”.

First Aid Kit is formed of two young teenage sisters who have managed to cause a huge noise in the folk world. The Swedish girls (Klara & Johanna Söderberg) may be physically young but the maturity in their debut album Drunken Trees is simply breathtaking.  Every song is filled with inventive musical composition which you just won’t hear anywhere else.

The girls describe their sound as “Folk/Acoustic/Japanese Pop”. Well I’m not an expert on what Japanese pop is like, but if it is anything like this then you can bet that I will be in a few months time. The album’s tracks seem to split into two categories: soft, delicate ballads and up-tempo Japanese Pop?

Lets get down to business then with the highlights of the record. “You’re not coming home tonight” seems to be the big hit out of the collection and it delivers  tidy acoustic playing that would not be out of place around the campfire. If you’re looking for the tune that defines First Aid Kit, then listen to “Jagadamba, You Might” which has a dark tone to it but displays the finest example of the superb vocals and lyrics that are unique to the two Söderberg sisters.

For me, the best track is “Tangerine” simply because it has the perfect balance of being a commercial acoustic song with the First Aid Kit spin to it. It builds at a steady pace and the chorus is one of the few you might be able to sing along with if your voice is as amateur as mine. I also believe that every album needs its perky/chirpy tunes and Drunken Trees does not disappoint with tracks like “Our Own Pretty Ways” and “Cross Oceans” which sees the girls go a bit rock and roll with an awesome bass line backing them up.

To sum up, the album is a stunner. It’s melodic yet weird vocals and scales flow through the record making for a captivating listen. If this duo are supposed to develop then I can’t imagine what the next release will be like. On first listen your ears are simply perplexed, but when you listen to the record again, let your ears adjust and you’ll surely love it.

When you’re fifteen what do you do? Your GCSE’s? Or are you on the verge of becoming a folk/acoustic sensation? That is a reality for Klara Söderberg who makes up one half of the duo First Aid Kit and is accompanied by her 18 year old sister Johanna. They’re young and talented but we have heard that all before so why is there are fuss about these two swedish girls. Well  because unless you were told how old they were, you would probably not be able to tell from their music as it has a maturity that features some awesome vocals from two voices with great range and unique style.

The tracks from the sisters are full of enchanting stories and some quite weird lyrics for thier age. They sound like they are a couple of old weather-beaten moaners with lines like “Yeah, you cooked his dinners/You raised his children/And still he’s not satisfied” and “I don’t know what I have done/I’m turning myself to a demon” and then go “la la la la la”!

The music is not really comparable to other artists as it sounds fresh an new. The tracks that I would recommend are “You’re not coming home tonight” featuring the most commercial song the two girls have produced and “Jagadamba you might” shows off the girls inventive vocals but don’t ask me what the title means.

First Aid Kit are easily doing extremely well but if you think about the years ahead they have in their advantage then it is almost scary of what they could achieve although as the girls put it they “aim for the hearts, not the charts”.

I love Koko in London – some of my favourite gigs of the year have taken place there (Stars, Air Traffic and Death Cab to list three – I also caught Tegan and Sara and Delays there, but didn’t write a review). They’re upping their game a bit, and have released some quick “highlights” programmes if you will – below is the Gossip @ Koko, or if guitar rock is more your sorta thing then catch The Enemy here.

Black Cab Sessions have garnered quite a cult following recently, with some massive artists playing the back of a cab… these include Brian Wilson,  Badly Drawn Boy, Lykke Li and Death Cab For Cutie. However, I honestly think that the latest one with Kurt from Lambchop was the best… catch it below:

Stumbled across this music video that recycles clips from 41 TV adverts – it’s by a Los Angeles band called From, and sounds pretty good, but the video is what takes a good song to an amazing combination.

Swedish duo First Aid Kit are Wichita’s latest signings, and are playing the label’s Christmas bash at Hoxton Bar and Grill (tickets £5). To get in the seasonal spirit of things they’ve done a special video… sounds like Tegan and Sara gone all Fleet Foxes on us. And that’s a good thing.

MUZU.tv has a great video from a band calling themselves the British Port Authority. Their new single, Seattle, is taken from their forthcoming album “I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat” which features the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Jack Penate, David Byrne, Iggy Pop and Martha Wainwright. I can’t find an official website, but watch the video and enjoy anyway!