Hi! This is Tom here, I’m the one behind Fika Recordings. I thought this first Fika-centric day of the advent calendar would provide a good opportunity to babble on about how the label started, in particular, how the three Swedish bands featured here were pivotal in getting Fika Recordings off the ground.
Let’s start at the beginning, four or five years ago. I stumbled upon a track from a female Swedish duo on the internets, Lovesong #1 by Lost Summer Kitten, which quickly became a staple of mixtapes I’d make for friends, my radio shows and melancholic Sunday evening DJ sets. It was a heartwrenchingly tender song and impossible to get hold of a physical copy in the UK. One day I thought, I should try and help release songs like this, songs I just want to play to as many people as physically possible.
Fast forward to London Popfest 2010. I got chatting to a couple of Swedes who’d flown over for it in the pub. Talk turned to the mixtapes we’d put together for the swap box… and that song was still being a fairly regular feature of my tapes. Turns out these girls, Amanda and Matilda, were Lost Summer Kitten.