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Neapolitan · 12-16-2014, 08:22 PM

Chapter Nine

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

First Aid Kit - Stay Gold

band: First Aid Kit
- Klara Söderberg - guitar, vocals
- Johanna Söderberg - keys, vocals

album: Stay Gold
- track listing
  1. My Silver Lining
  2. Master Pretender
  3. Stay Gold
  4. Cedar Lane
  5. Shattered & Hollow
  6. The Bell
  7. Waitress Song
  8. Fleeting One
  9. Heaven Knows
  10. A Long Time Ago

backstory
Johanna and Klara Söderberg are Folk duo from Sweden. Klara was inspired to pick up the guitar because she wanted to play Bright Eyes songs. They recorded "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes. Robin Pecknold noticed it and posted it on band's webpage. That help further the duo's popularity. When they met up with Mike Mogis at Austin City Limits. He came to their show. Ask them if he could produce their next album, and they said "sure." He was the producer of The Lion's Roar and Stay Gold.
Klara Söderberg

impressions
One of first videos I saw of them was Play with Fire by The Rolling Stones. And the first things that hooked me in was Klara Söderberg guitar playing. She is good at finger-picking, and her roll patterns always add a soft folksy feel to the song. I really enjoyed their harmony as well, and their vocal style makes seem older than they are, and so authentic it seem as if they recorded decades ago, or time traveled from to the present. Beside all their talent, I love them for fact they said that they like to sing songs that are sad.

video
The video is a live studio performance for their song from Stay Gold. The video was published on Dec 2, 2014, but was broadcaster earlier (~ Nov 15th). If there is anything to point out in the video is the instruments used. The large snare with a wooden rim provides more of a field drum sound, instead of a typical snap of a snare. The drummer uses mallets to soften the cymbal crashes and when used on the toms, it gives a lower sound reminiscent of a bodhran. Klara uses a smaller acoustic guitar, more of a pallor size, which are smaller than Folk guitar or Country Jumbo guitars. A distant pedal steel adds a nice Country flavor to the more tradition Folk songs. Johanna rounds it providing all the other instrument sounds heard on the record with her keyboard/synth.

First Aid Kit - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)