New Music 2012 - Part 2 - First Aid Kit - Lions Roar

This, as it happens, is another sophomore LP and the follow-up to 'The Big, Black and The Blue' (2010) and the EP 'Drunken Trees' (2009). That is to mention, furthermore, that 2012 is most certainly not the year in which to underestimate music from Scandinavia, always a dangerous game as it comes in all moods and not least this from the Söderberg sisters - First Aid Kit.

Woolly jumpers and fingerless gloves notwithstanding they do barbed lyrics far better than many much older but there is competition. New album 'The Lion's Roar' is released early in 2012 by Wichita Recordings and First Aid Kit is confirmed as appearing at End Of The Road 2012. Tickets available now - see you there!

Lots more, it seems... New Music 2010 - Part 2

I'm still working on a list of the live performances that I have enjoyed the most in 2009. They seem to fall in to two fairly distinct categories; on one hand those that I was well aware of from recorded output and thus wanted to hear live and, on the other hand, ones that were essentially an unknown proposition. Many in this latter category were new acts and many of those will be releasing their first full LP in 2010.
This one is released by Wichita Recordings (12" LP, CD, d/l) on January 25, 2010 in the UK.

The Big Black and The Blue is the follow-up to 2009 EP Drunken Trees.

First Aid Kit, while an act that fell in the latter category, are very likely to appear in my 'Best of 2009 - live!' and which I hope to have posted by the end of tomorrow.

Another band releasing an album in 2010, this time their second, is miles away from Swedish acoustic in style and is London's New Young Pony Club. I can't wait and it too has live music connotations: July 2007 saw me at a festival for the first time in the modern era and the first headline act I saw there, on the Friday evening on the Sunrise Stage at Latitude 2007, was NYPC who had just released their début album, Fantastic Playroom. That was probably pretty much the moment that I realized being at a festival was something that I really did want to do and not simply some nostalgia-induced aberration. As yet I do not know the title or release date for this, but the fact that is confirmed is heartening. The last was released by Modular Recordings but I have no confirmation of that for this one.