First Aid Kit, Temper Trapand more
First Aid Kit: a cut above other teenagers
Alan Hansen once scoffed that you never win anything with kids. The former Liverpool great could just as well have been talking about the indie rock'n'roll game, where children's bands are a regular fad. Most of these kid-rockers rarely get beyond fad status because they simply don't have the songs or gumption for the long haul.
There should be no such problems with First Aid Kit , chiefly because Swedish sisters Johanna (18) and Klara (15) Söderberg already have an arsenal of songs to wow you with. It’s startling to hear two teens deliver weather-beaten tunes about hard lives, tough love and all-round domestic weariness and ennui. And we thought Sweden was some sort of socio-economic utopia?
Imagine Karen Dalton’s younger sisters rewriting the Fleet Foxes back-catalogue and you can understand why the Rabid and Wichita labels eagerly handed the Söderbergs a pen and invited them (or their parents) to sign on the dotted line. When the duo performed at the recent Eurosonic festival, there were just as many people stuck outside the venue as there were inside, all in awe of the delicate, beautiful songs they were hearing. As a result of that successful show in front of European bookers and media, the Söderbergs will probably spend their summer holidays traipsing around the festival circuit.
You wonder if this is what they had in mind when they started singing along to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera tunes on the radio back home in Enskede, a suburb of Stockholm. Things changed when the pair came across Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bright Eyes and realised they preferred these songs to Dirty and Toxic. Add in a guitar to the mix and it was quite obvious where this was going.
When Johanna and Klara first started writing songs in 2007, the melodies and harmonies kept on appearing as if a tap had been turned on. By the time their Drunken Trees mini-album appeared last summer, the sisters already had oodles of radio airplay and live gigs to their credit at home.
Their enchanting folk songs, lush harmonies and distinctive vocal pitch brought even more attention from further afield. A video of the pair performing Tiger Mountain Peasant Song by Fleet Foxes appeared on YouTube, and non-Swedes began raving about these two ethereal teens. With Drunken Trees now on wide release via Wichita, chances are that such raving will not end anytime soon.
[ www.myspace.com/thisisfirstaidkitOpens in new window ]
The Temper Trap: wizards of Oz
The fact that two of this year's most hotly tipped new acts (Empire of the Sun are the other) hail from the Down Under means we really should be replenishing our stock of Oz cliches to press into use. Or trying to find out whatever happened to The Avalanches, the last truly fantastic band from that side of the world.
Oh, and praying that the likes of Jet and Wolfmother won't use this latest spot in the limelight as an excuse to put out new records.
Such matters must be put aside, however, as The Temper Trap are waiting patiently for their close-up. These four chaps from Melbourne have been making loads of friends thanks to songs such as Sweet Disposition. Heart- warming epic rock with pop trimmings made them a winning proposition in their hometown and persuaded starry producer Jim Abiss (Adele and Arctic Monkeys are previous clients) to work on their debut album, which will emerge later this year.
What's interesting about The Temper Trap is how their arena-friendly sound has none of the pratfalls of your U2s and Coldplays. Of course, it takes time to develop an ego as large and off-putting as a Bono or Chris Martin, and TTT could do well to avoid those cul-de-sacs.
Certainly, record biz big-wig Korda Marshall hopes they will deliver the goods – he has just signed the band to his relaunched Infectious label in the hope they will do for it what Ash, Muse and Garbage did the first time around.
www.thetempertrap.com
Three more to try
Carosel:Perky, soulful, sunny jazz-pop from Irish boy/girl duo Pete McGrane and Michelle Phelan. Debut album Kaleidoscopeout February 27th. www.carosel.ie
Soap & Skin:18-year-old Austrian Anja Plaschg makes spooky sounds and songs to soundtrack your favourite horror flick. www.myspace.com /soapandskin
The Tallest Man On Earth:Aka Swedish singer- songwriter Kristian Matsson, whose Shallow Gravealbum is a darn fine set of scrappy melodies, crackling vocals and new blues age highs. www.myspace.com/thetallestmanonearth
