Matt and Kim

Matt and Kim
Grand
(Fader, 2009)

Grand. Odd name for a 29-minute album made in and by the tenants of a Brooklyn apartment so tiny that, as eponymous co-ed Matt Johnson demonstrated in an article for the Village Voice, when he stretches, he can touch both ends of the living room wall. The one-bedroom probably costs less than a grand. Grand? In this economy? What jerks. Nevertheless, their place is on Grand Street, which houses far more people and probably more bands than this duo, just as indie rock houses far more ambitious groups with more to say and bigger goals. Content in their miniscule mouse hole for whatever cheese may drop in, with their eensy fanbase, eensy instrumental setup (Matt: Keyboard; Kim Schifino: Drums) and eensier tunes, Grand is the duo’s cheeky acknowledgment that the world is bigger than they are and that’s okay.

Miniaturists in American music tend to work best with a story to tell or a riff to clean out of the memory bank. With its Playskool chord progressions and clunky rhythm rush, 2006’s Matt and Kim had nothing to say because it hadn’t yet learned its own language, defined by the hyper-annoying “Yea Yeah” and its rendered-tuneless title. With the whole syrupy mess coated in cute adepts of the lovey-dovey would decry how-dare-they. But even Johnson admits they were “learning how to play their instruments.”

Grand is supposed to be where they get it together, right? After all, it’s been almost three years. And they do… kinda. New arrangements split the pretty from the banal, with keyboard variations (piano, simulated strings, organ, more sawtooth synth) and percussion sounds (the hooky “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare” has a boom-boom-clap to make J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” jealous). But while Grand is less irritating than its predecessor, it’s still not enough to make this band compelling.

Johnson is an awkward, yelpy singer—not uncommon in indie, or unappreciated—except pretty useless without the fussily etched-in hooks of Hot Hot Heat’s Steve Bays or the wild inflammation of Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. He sounds more like a tone-impaired castoff from a celebrated late ’90s emo band, like Braid or the Promise Ring, who ended up stuck between Mates of State and the instruction manual to his Yamaha.

Mates of State is indeed the first thing you might think of, but their fanned-out orchestrations and snaky structures, not to mention bungee-cord harmony turns, are miles in advance of Matt and Kim’s youthful bluster. The problem is something’s wrong in the affect. “Hey New York / She’s a wolf-like shadow” and “Spare Change” are respectively, a lyric and a title that respectfully decline to grab the weight they require to even float simple pop tunes. Ask Los Campesinos!, to whom this stuff comes easier. The “Daylight Outro Remix”, “I Wanna”, “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare”, and Panda Bear-on-fast-forward “I’ll Take Us Home” all come close to delivering. If Matt and Kim could only look past their own street, maybe they’d be capable of producing an actual feeling. And if we’re really lucky, maybe they won’t even cover it with cute.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

Tags: Matt and Kim, Grand, Fader Records