7 April, The Fleece | Photos: Albert Testani
Watching Matt & Kim perform is the sonic equivalent of what happens when you eat way too many Skittles. The immense rush, blinding colours and endless kinetic energy propels you and everyone around into a frenzy of hip-hop, dance, indie and a little bit of air horn.
Kim Schifino and Matt Johnson’s strength’s rest in their ability to incite excitement and before you wonder if you’ve heard this song before or whether or not it’s a cover, you thrown into the next relentless cheesy pop beat. While their style of DIY and genre spanning set is not as uncommon as it was when they first began performing along side their debut album in 2006, they take the stage and play each song with the demand that you will be entertained.
Supporting their most recent album, New Glow, Matt & Kim’s sound reflects an evolving interpretation of pop music. During tracks like ‘Let’s Go’, ‘Now’ and ‘Hey Now’, the overwhelming theme of immediacy stresses that Matt & Kim are best enjoyed here, in a live setting, where they dispense with body gyrations and choreographed drum mounted screams.
Matt & Kim want to be easily identifiable. Whether through Kim’s punk-styled drumming or Matt’s nasally vocals, they push for pop music to be something more and end up with a unique identity and undeniably fun performance, that backs them into a corner stylistically. Their use of covers, like DMX and Rhianna, serve both to excite the crowd and to give them the chance to breakdown the wall between them and the audience to the point where Kim organises the crowd to allow her to walk out on their hands.
The cheerfully sweaty pop duo’s universally accessible music succeeds at drawing the crowd into the moment over and over again. After being battered by synth and four four drumming, their choreographed set shines and shimmers with heavy production and dance break downs, and while they try to bring the Brooklyn hipster edge to pop, you are still left with the thickest and cheesiest parts of pop.
Check out ‘Hey Now’ right here: