Then Facebook splashes, inevitably bringing me back high school memories, so lately I’ve been listening to old high school bands, who’ve all recently released new albums it seems. The Cure, Skinny Puppy, New Order, Urban Dance Squad, NIN, Bjork, hell even Erasure just put out a record, yikes.
I woke up from my veterinarian-napping and high school musings the moment I heard the song ‘Yea Yeah’ from Matt and Kim’s self-titled debut album. And thank God for that, my ears were getting fucking atrophied, my heart was feeling like a sink full of dishwater and my faith in new music was waning like a forgotten about three day old cheese platter.
Wow! What an amazing record! Music and grins, coming together? Drums and keyboards and excitement, playing out like a chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream roller derby heading straight for me? Yes. Hmmm that’s funny I just caught their video for ‘Yea Yeah’, and it does looks like there’s a food roller derby going on in it……. That’s the best video I’ve seen in the past ten years, by far….if that Christopher Walken dancing in the hotel video is ten years old.
From what I can tell Matt and Kim are going steady. That’s so cool, it makes their smiling even more contagious, knowing there’s a lot of wink-wink nudge-nudge action going on behind them! They’re from Brooklyn and Matt’s last name is Johnson and Kim’s is Schifino, I actually thought for a while they didn’t have last names, I wonder how you pronounce Schifino, that’s a nice name.
The music itself? Think of a sound a lot like Mates of State (actually which is a band whose two members are married and touring with their kid right now, well that’s weird…I sense a new term coming on).
Matt holla-yells the great lyrics on top of his keyboards which provide a retro casio-tone sound mixed with synth action which I like so much. Kim’s drums and back up vocals frame each song perfectly. This record shoots right by, thankfully there’s those playback buttons, not to mention turn up the volume dials too. Their enthusiasm and moxie leaves me inspired to live better (less couch time more staring into my girlfriend’s eyes time).
Matt and Kim are coming to Vancouver on June the 6th, at Pat’s Pub, located in the scenic and spring-fresh Downtown East Hastings neighborhood. They’ll be everywhere else either before or after their Vancouver stop. Their album is available at all the normal and cooler and better still spots, best yet buy it at their gig.
