With minimalist, ebullient synth-and-drum songs that often don't exceed two minutes, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino have established a hard-won reputation as a raucous live juggernaut. But on their new album as Matt And Kim, Grand, the two slow down and wander into a universe populated with more than just two instruments.
Johnson plays keyboards and sings about longing for home in one of the album's cornerstones: the wistful "Daylight," in which his everyman voice doesn't mesh so much as glide lazily atop a reverb-soaked string section. Meanwhile, Schifino plays her drum kit sloppily but lovingly. She's prone to big smashes and crashes, providing fitting punctuation for her counterpart's bouncy melodies.
The sum of those disparate parts has a hidden beauty, a majesty that belies their often humble subject matter. As Johnson warbles and speak-sings short vignettes about life on Grand Street in Brooklyn ("I miss yellow lines in my roads / Some color on monochrome / Maybe I'll paint them in myself"), every wrong note rings true.
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