I'm excited to introduce a new guest blogger, Juke Box Hero. He's a good friend with great taste in music and a sophisticated -- one might say global -- way about him. His posts will be appearing Wednesdays from now until infinity, or until he picks another day, whichever comes first.
Sir, the floor is yours.
- Brittany
I suppose you've really "made it" when you have Jack White calling you into his studio after a gig. The prolific rocktreprenuer snatched up the Swedish sirens known as First Aid Kit without skipping one high lonesome beat after seeing them perform a Nashville gig last October. The duo got to press this cover of "It Hurts Me Too" into vinyl for White's series of Third Man Records seven-inch one-offs. Theirs is a great success story for Mr. Gore to notch on his Internet belt; if not for MySpace and YouTube, First Aid Kit might still be stuck in the hills of Scandinavia. Fortunately for us, the world now sounds a little prettier.
The Söderberg sisters are the surefire rebuttal to any doubt that American-minded folk (revival) music is alive and well with today’s Swedish youth. Since 2007, the Stockholm-based duo of Johanna, 21, and Klara, 18, has been recording sweet, tight harmonies in the vein of the Carter Family, Gram Parsons, and even Simon & Garfunkel. The exotic novelty of foreigners channeling Americana wears off as soon as they count off a song ‘ett, tva, tre, fyra’ (one to four in Swedish). The girls aren’t just good for a couple of teenage troubadours; they could hold their own with your Partons, your Judds, your Dylans, your Baezeses…
Though the homespun tracks posted to their MySpace page initially drew a bit of attention from the Swedish music community, things really took off when they casually covered kindred spirits the Fleet Foxes’ "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song." They recorded the track in an actual Scandinavian forest, which also served as the setting for the music video. The brisk, pastoral setting coupled with their tinglingly strong vocals and innocent, elfish beauty made the video a quick hit on YouTube, even drawing the attention (and approval) of their heavily bearded honorees. A few acoustic strums later and they’d released two studio records, 2008's LP "Drunken Trees" and 2010’s EP "The Big Black & the Blue." Hence the young Swedish sisters embarked on what’s become a two-year international tour.
Unlike the Bed Intruders and Rebecca Blacks of our insta-stardom world, the mass discovery of First Aid Kit (the name apparently came from a Swedish-English dictionary entry) was fortunate. The girls’ emotional, narrative melodies may not be as genre-splittingly creative as their countrywoman Lykke Li (though they’re touring together now, so maybe some electro-power-pop will rub off?), but there’s an unmistakable genuineness, a raw soul, that consistently pours out through their soaring, intertwining voices.
We’ll leave you with one of my favourite tracks from their EP: "I Met Up with a King." Enjoy the flutey synths (Simon & G-Funk anyone?), that uncanny melding of Klara’s bright twangy mezzo and Johanna’s sultry alto, and the acknowledgment that despite the worldly depth of many of their songs’ lyrics, [their characters] have quite a ways to go yet: ‘Well I don’t know anything at all and we mean nothing to history… well thank God.’
- Juke Box Hero
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