Matt & Kim, 'Grand'

The buzz: Indie couple Matt Johnson (vocals, keyboards) and Kim Schifino (drums) have been making beautiful music together since 2004, when they met at New York’s Pratt Institute and began playing their cheerfully lo-fi, highly percussive synth-pop at Brooklyn warehouse parties. After building some buzz with a debut album on iheartcomix and an underground hit (“Yea Yeah”), they’re back with a sophomore album for Fader magazine’s boutique label.

The verdict: How much you like Matt & Kim’s music probably correlates pretty closely with how you feel about happily monogamous couples who frequently moon over each other in public—it’s either totally adorable or totally irritating. Not that many songs on “Grand” are specifically about Matt & Kim’s relationship—but their genuine affection for one another, and the joy they get from playing together, permeates simple, irrepressible songs like “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare” and “I Wanna” with more aw-shucks sweetness than most bands’ actual love songs. If they have any edge at all, it’s in Kim’s busy, syncopated kit work, which juices standout tracks like album opener “Daylight” into giddy dance-pop territory.

Did you know? When they started out in 2004, Matt didn’t know how to play keyboards, and Kim didn’t know how to play drums—they basically learned on the job. That’s sort of totally adorable and/or totally irritating, too, isn’t it?

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