A few months back, the YouTube clip for Swedish duo First Aid Kit and their cover of Fleet Foxes‘ ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’ skipped round the world-wide-eyed web like the world-wide wildfire. Such is the love for Fleet Foxes, such is the love for the fact that they were signing it in the middle of a forest, and such is the the strength and savage roar that First Aid Kit bring to the track. Savagery that’s all the more remarkable given that they’re two teenage sisters from Stockholm who run marathons and love Gary Numan. Klara and Johanna Söderberg confess to not only loving the Numanoid but also have a penchant for Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, which explains how they might have come to write such intense yet delicate songs, yet fails to capture the story of the honey-flecked, bear-like growl that posits them as a DNA mutation, birthed via a netherworld tryst between Cocorosie and Johnny Cash.
The album, ‘Drunken Trees’, is rather fittingly released via The Knife’s Rabid Records label (availably digitally), and will be given a UK reissue next February via Wichita – complete with the Fleet Foxes cover (which you can also download below), and a DVD featuring more tracks sung in that Swedish forest. Last week they were given the oddly dubious nomination of “Most Promising Swedish Act On MySpace” and you can give them your vote-love via their MurdochSpace blog.
First Aid Kit – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song | mp3 (mediafire link)