Music: First Aid Kit

Charming video of Swedish duo First Aid Kit covering "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" by Fleet Foxes. (And it's a bit late, but they also do a great "Blue Christmas".

(There's also a Nova Scotian band called the First Aid Kit (who don't exactly stand out from the crowd), an extinct post-punk band called First Aid Kit from Connecticut, and a Spanish electronic-ish band called First Aid Kit, who are actually quite pleasant.)

YouTube: Road Songs

• Lars Bygden & Ane Brun - "This Road" (Read about her at the NY Times)
  
• The Cardigans - "The Road" (One of my favourite Cardigan songs. Too bad we only see the back of Nina's head.)
  
• The Cowboy Junkies with Ryan Adams - "200 More Miles" (For 20th anniversary of "The Trinity Sessions".)
  
• The Highwaymen - "On The Road Again" (My least favourite Willie Nelson song.)
  
• Katie Melua - "On The Road Again" (Canned Heat cover.)
  
• Barrabas - "On The Road Again" (Spanish disco.)
  
• Lightnin' Hopkins - "Lonesome Road" (And dominos!)
  
• The Triffids - "Wide Open Road" (Perfect.)
  

Music: Action Biker

I'm not mad about her synthy backing music, but I'm smitten with the Swedish singer who goes by the name Action Biker (born Sarah Nyberg Pergament). In the second half of this video she conjugates French verbs to a ye-ye beat. (You can hear it at her MySpace too.) She sings three songs in this video, just her head singing to the camera. (The first song reminds me very much of early Cardigans.)

One of her many other projects is The Dreamers.

Unrelated: a 3-year-old explains "Star Wars".

Music: Wilco In Swedish

Nice, slow, live Swedish cover of Wilco's "Jesus Etc.". Using this online translator, going from English to Swedish and back again, "turning your orbit around" becomes "phrases your banana around".

Music: Christian Kjellvander

Charming video of Swedish singer-songwriter Christian Kjellvander playing a song on a banjo in his car, with birdsong in the background. Was it really filmed on a cellphone? Seems awfully good quality.

YouTube has more of his videos, including "Drunken Hands", "Drag The Dirt In", and "Days Of Black (Nights Are Lights)" by his old band, Loosegoats. (The Loosegoats early EP, "Small Lesbian Baseball Players", shows up on a web store that specialises in baseball-related items.)

(Via swedesplease, purveyors of the best in Swedish music.)

Music: A Camp

Great news out of Sweden! Nina Persson is making a new A Camp album! Not sure about the shift away from the country sound, but the Adam Ant influence could be interesting.