Cougar Microbes

Fresh off the back of a successful nationwide tour Matt & Kim have just announced a special New Years Eve show.

The Brooklyn mischief makers will be playing at the Hammersmith Ballroom on December 31st for what is set to be an electrifying way to end the year and usher in 2012.

For those of you who are interested tickets are available today at noon EST.

TRACKS:

Matt and Kim – Daylight (Troublemaker Remix feat. De La Soul) by Troublemaker

Brooklyn‘s Matt & Kim  bring their catchy-as-ebola attitude to the video for new single ‘Block After Block‘. The track was taken off of their “mature” third studio album ‘Sidewalks‘ and sees more of the band’s trademark synth and drums fun sound.

Having seen the duo rip it up on stage in London it’s great to see that their live energy translates here too. This looks like it was a lot of fun filming.

TRACKS:

Having recently reviewing Matt & Kim‘s latest “grown-up” offering ‘Sidewalks‘ we jumped at the chance to catch them live when they rocked up in london in March. It feels sometimes like the Brooklyn combo’s greatest strength, their energy and exuberance, can see them ignored by “real” music fans. But on the night I was pleased to see the duo had not matured completely.

The thing about The Garage is that even when it is (supposedly) sold out there is a lot of breathing space round the sides which suits me just fine. There is a notable high presence of chequered shirts and skinny jeans which I imagine makes this crowd not too dissimilar from the ones M&K usually entertain back home. Significantly, and to their credit, this is also the portion of the audience who are the most rabid when the headliners hit the stage. Tonight this excitable and youthful segment of the audience MADE this show.

This electricity clearly gets the band buoyed from the get go and very quickly they were throwing themselves into every number like their lives depend on it. Kim Schifino is an authentic ball of energy; her limbs flailing all over the place and a smile permanently etched on her face. Matt Johnson takes the role of the twitchy master of ceremonies speaking 100 words a minute with his nervous excitement visible and contagious.

Dropping bits and bombs from their entire discography means the band’s progress from 2006′s ‘Matt & Kim‘ to last year’s ‘Sidewalks‘ is easy to pinpoint. So whilst their repertoire mixes effortlessly its seems the newer numbers are more satisfying to play and perform. Of the many well recieved songs ‘Cameras‘ seems to win the biggest appreciation showcasing our cocksure heroes doing what they do best and loving it.

I have a feeling that tonight may not have necessarily won any new fans over. After all this type of cathartic mass sing along experience is not as fun if you are not screaming along to every word or in the case of the duo at this point sweating and dancing in the front row.

For those who knew what they were in for Matt & Kim gave 110% and a delivered a textbook performance. Catch them on their extensive US road trip in June, you won’t regret it.

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Photos used by permission and copyrighted to Dan Smyth Photography

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TRACKS:

It takes a cold heart and a degree of self-importance to dismiss Matt & Kim offhand as childish and naïve. There is no doubt that many do. There is undeniably an air of youthful enthusiasm to their made-for-radio, synth-pop – with emphasis on the ‘pop’. But scratch beneath the surface and you unearth a real craft for imaginative song structuring. And, as the Brooklyn art-school duo hone their talent, a degree of – wait for it – enlightened lyricism is even starting to prevail.

Their third album ‘Sidewalks’ was released at the end of 2010 in the US but for the well-behaved non-file-sharers out there it officially hits UK shelves at the end of March. Like its 2009 predecessor ‘Plans’ the new full-length is incredibly polished, yet producers Ben Allen and Oliver Straus preserve some of the lo-fi urgency that shot the outfit into the billboard charts.

‘Sidewalks’ is very much an album of two halves. Die-hard fans of Matt & Kim’s previous work will be comforted to hear the familiar upbeat innocence which, musically at least, dominates the first half of the album. Kim Schifino’s exuberant percussion is prominent as ever yet this is far from being ‘more of the same’ with quasi hip-hop rhythms lending a new ‘freshness’ to their work.

Midway through this ten-track slice of pop, proceedings take a slightly more minimalist turn on ‘Where You’re Coming From’. Low on instrumentation and simple in structure the track shows a new level of maturity from this likable duo. It is a pattern that peppers the rest of the album, most notably on ‘Northeast’ which would be unlikely to appear on either of the outfit’s previous releases.

There is, however much in Matt Johnson’s lyrics which point to compromise. On the whole the music may be uplifting but the message is more contemplative and at times regretful. Themes focus heavily on strained relationships and resentment towards life on the road. On ‘AM/FM’ the lines “meet after dark and just follow me, treads been worn away, wrong side of the street” wouldn’t feel out of place in a Springsteen notebook. Though the pace and delivery remains urgent and vivid, the words reveal undoubted melancholy – “we tore the walls out, in this old bedroom of your house,” says Johnson on ‘Where You’re Coming From’, “to make room for dreams”.

There are the obligatory sure-fire hits and they are undoubtedly good – ‘Camera’s’ is a stand-out track which in a sense captures the essence of the entire album in three lines: “pound my steering wheel, we yell to the windshield, I’m finally home”. Yet it isn’t all deep and serious, ‘Good for Great’ could slot easily into any of the acts previous collections with lines like: “we sing along though the notes are wrong, we sing along through night and dawn”. It is, however, the understated tracks that triumph, making this the New Yorkers’ strongest release to date.

Overall ‘Sidewalks’ is an unexpectedly honest and personal affair. Sadly it is hard to shake the feeling that the chirpy duo have cheated themselves slightly – the desire to keep things low-key almost wiped out by the fear of upsetting the core support. You feel that anybody who really gets the outfit must surely appreciate each piece of work for its own merits. The result is that the album feels disjointed in places but equally whets the appetite for an exciting new direction. Matt & Kim are growing up. That is not necessarily a good or a bad thing.

‘Sidewalks’ is out in the UK on 28th of March via Different Records and is available in all the very best record stores. Take your pick.

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Post by Kenny the elder statesman.

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TRACKS:

A few months ago we ran a competition giving Cougar Microbes readers a free copy of TuneUp to fix their music collection.

We asked the question: If you could rearrange/fix/change any musical moment that has happened in history what would it be?

This was the outstanding in our books by a guy called Blue:

1. Light Aircrafts
Ban them. They took Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, country star Patsy Cline, John Denver, Otis Redding, Big Bopper, half of Lynrd Skynryd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads, and Aaliyah to name but a handful. No wonder the tour bus is such a popular transportation option.

2. Finding God
Once the Big Guy gets under an artist’s skin the work tends to suffer. Al Green went from making the sexiest music known to man to making gospel albums known to nobody. P.Diddy protege Mase quit hip-hop for the ministry, and when he came back his skills didn’t. The less said about Bob Dylan‘s born-again albums the better, and just picture Jehovah’s Witness Prince proselytizing door-to-door in purple pumps. Esther (née Madonna) caused quite the mishegas by hopping onto Kabbalah’s New-Age-Judaism bandwagon. And Cat Stevens loved Islam so much he named himself after it when he converted, then quit the music business in 1979. Silly rock stars — you’re supposed to be the ones being worshipped!

3. “Colonel” Tom Parker
Before Suge Knight, Lou Pearlman or even Allen Klein came the “Colonel” – inventor of ruinously exploitative rock management. Getting his hooks into Elvis in 1955, the Dutch con man artfully steered the King away from making music and towards the likes of Clambake, Kissin’ Cousins, Kid Galahad, and about 30 other Hollywood forgettables he made instead of recording or touring for most of the next decade.

4. Electric Violins
Say no more

5. Nearly Every Hip-Hop Video
We get it. Your ride is pimped, your crib is a castle, you sip “Cristal” and have a queue of semi-naked hoes lining up to get into your jacuzzi. Congratulations to a generation of hip-hop video directors for making decadence seem so boring.

6. Braided Goatees
Just grow those chin whiskers out a foot, part in the middle, and weave pube-like braids. Tragically, the resulting blood loss to the head severely lowers IQ levels, resulting in guttural vocals and misspelled band names.

TuneUp are currently hosting a holiday sale so click here to get a 20% discount on “the perfect holiday gift for music lovers”

TRACKS:

Today I read read a post on Shut Up, Bands ripping apart a young band with little inspiration. I forwarded it to my studio engineer friend and he ended up writing his own critique and even offered to record one free track for them.

Here is a good song instead.

TRACK:

Matt & Kim – Daylight (remix)