First Aid Kit are a Swedish duo comprising 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
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First Aid Kit are a Swedish duo comprising 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, and was followed by a request from Jack White to record a single at his Third Man Studios, which resulted in their cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier." They struck up a friendship with Conor Oberst and appeared live with Bright Eyes on tour, before they entered the studio with the band's guitarist Mike Mogis for their third release, Lion's Roar, which arrived in early 2012. The lead single "Emmylou" was a mild success in the U.S., and was listed by Rolling Stone as their tenth best single of the year in 2012. Their creative relationship with Oberst was cemented in 2014 when the sisters sang backing vocals on his solo album Upside-Down Mountain, and that same year the duo released Stay Gold, their first album on the major label Columbia.
