Born into a musical famiy, the Bondesson sisters Stella (dog house bass, vocals), Greta (banjo, guitar, percussion, harmonica, vocals) and Sunniva (guitar, vocals) began singing and playing music together as teenagers.  Backing their father in the smoky blues dives and country and western dance halls of Stockholm, the sisters were smitten by music’s power over themselves and their audiences.

“We played cover songs for drunken people, but we never played songs we didn’t like just to please the crowd . . . it gave us a collective backbone,” their website biography states.

The band is named after a small village north of Stockholm.  The town has no special significance to the Bondesson sisters.

Call it backbone, fangs and claws or sassiness, the trio reflects a serious command of their vocals, instruments and songwriting skills.

I believe that there is something special about the harmonies gifted siblings create with their voices.  Think:  Louvin Brothers and Everly Brothers.  Just the same, Stella, Greta and Sunniva share a tight and inseparable harmony that reaches a spiritual level.

Sonically, Baskery is often described in other music review publications as Europe’s answer to the Dixie Chicks.  I can hear the similarity, but add a pinch of molten-hot burn to their artisanal, hybrid sound and discover more than just three chords and the truth.  All three play as if telepathically connected, just like their voices sound. Forget the waif-like melancholy ballads of many modern-day American female country stars.  The estrogen-powered Baskery creates music by “turning it on its head, and blending the straightforwardness of punk with the singer/songwriter [style],” according to their web site.

How Greta simultaneously coordinates percussion, stringed instruments, pedals, a harmonica and vocals seems superhuman to me.  The multi-faceted eldest sister is a wizard who plays to any mood of a song whether it requires a spaghetti western feel or a barroom sing-along toast.

Stella adds a strong backbone to the sound with a meaty stoutness.  One might not expect the dainty Stella to dominate her double bass the way she does, but as the foundation of the Baskery sound, she’s clearly in charge of her strings.

The youngest sister, Sunniva, adds a frenetic rhythm that seals Baskery’s restless sound, and she was the primary songwriter of the band until a few years ago when the three began collaborating on song ideas.

Like many singers/songwriters, a lyric topic often manifests itself to the artists in spontaneous ways “like from the car, or when you meet someone,” Greta said. But just the same, the three agree that some ideas are like the persistent voices of the conscience.

“Yes, like the hard part when you’re about to fall asleep, when you have this phrase in your head, and then you’re like ‘Oh!  I’m too tired to write it down!,’ and in the morning it’s gone,” Greta explained.

“But if it comes back to you,” Sunniva interjected,” it means something.”

And that’s how the song “Big Flo” was formed.  Greta saw a documentary about Big Flo, an airplane that had crashed in New Mexico.  The harsh memory of the film wouldn’t subside until she wrote the lyrics.  When the trio had played the tune earlier in the evening at Almost Austin, they prefaced the sound of the song as one reminiscent of Crosby Stills and Nash or America.  Yet when I heard the song, I was reminded of the sleepy sounds of The Youngbloods “Get Together” and Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.”

Considering the sisters are multilingual, I couldn’t help but ask how it affects their songwriting.
Sunniva answered that “the ideas come mostly in English, but when it comes to making the details of a song, [we] sometimes need a dictionary to make sure that [we’re] coming across [with the right intent].”

For the most part, the Bondesson’s think, speak and “swear in English,” Greta confessed.

Nevertheless, Sunniva credits what few lingual limitations she and her sisters share for the lyrical directness in their songs:

“We want to connect with as many people as possible.  We find a way to communicate which is pretty primitive, and sometimes we take chances and write something poetic.”

“But we watch out for the ‘I love you’ thing because we want to stay out of the clichés,” Greta added.

Try sampling the girls’-night-out party tune “Out of Towner” from their 2008 Fall Among Thieves.  Greta’s heavy metal guitar feedback matches the mood of the blatant “No, I don’t want to go to bed with a man from town . . . “

Surely, Baskery has to adjust to smaller audiences in the states when they, more often than not, play to packed stadiums across Europe (check out their YouTube videos).  But the packed Almost Austin house spectators expressed their enthusiasm with the mammoth energy that only Texans can demonstrate.

After playing the KPFT 43rd birthday bash at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck the following morning, Baskery headed to Austin’s SXSW for various showcases.

Needless to say, the sisters had a full and rushed itinerary, but that never came through in their music.  I asked them if they could relate to what Rosanne Cash said in her autobiography Composed:  A Memoir about touring with family. To paraphrase Cash:  It doesn’t matter how bad the argument or the hostility toward a family member, there is something about singing that duet or harmonizing with him/her.  No words of apology or regret are required.

Stella, Greta and Sunniva agree that after spending so much time together, they sometimes find themselves annoyed and aggravated with one another.  But the music they make in a live performance makes the peace for them and strengthens their bonds.

Their latest album was recorded in Berlin, and we can expect its release within the next few months.  If you enjoy the fire in their One Horse Down and Fall Among Thieves albums, keep an eye out for their next live performance in Houston/Pasadena.  The CDs or i-Tunes studio recordings are a delight, but they don’t come close to a live Baskery experience!