First Aid Kit

All Music Guide:

First Aid Kit are a Swedish duo comprised of sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, whose vocal harmonies and woodsy, folk-influenced songwriting take influence from the likes of Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom. Hailing from suburban Enskede, the siblings began composing songs as young teenagers in 2007. The home-recorded "Tangerine" enjoyed airplay on Swedish radio later that summer, and the debut EP Drunken Trees helped expand the girls' audience upon its release in April 2008. The London-based Wichita Records reissued Drunken Trees one year later, bolstering its track list with a reverent Fleet Foxes cover and three additional songs performed live in a Swedish forest. The duo then set to work on a full-length album, balancing schoolwork with the recording sessions. The Big Black & the Blue was released in 2010, followed by Lion's Roar in early 2012.

Wikipedia:

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.

History [edit]

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 April 16, 2012 the band performed "Emmylou" on Conan O'Brien

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 the Hearts of Men" was featured in episode 21 of series 8 of Bones

In 2013, they were awarded the Nordic Music Prize for 2012.