Brooklyn duo Matt (Johnson, keyboards) and Kim (Schifino, drums), having met as students at Pratt Institute, soon began collaborating musically and were quickly recognized for their thunder-punching, melodic mix of indie punk and dance. Pitchfork described their sound as “melody so happily jerky and rhythms so dangerously spastic that you can practically hear paroxysmal crowds pogo-ing madly...Johnson sings and thousands of other kids in his zip code (and others like it around the country) feel like he’s describing their Saturday nights.” It wasn’t long before Matt and Kim went on to a string of successful album releases and rose to the top as the go-to live band for raw exuberance and dance-ready anthems.
Vaguess (pronounced Vegas) is the recording project of Los Angeles-based musician, Vinny Earley. Since 2012, Earley has created a prolific and frenzied body of work that bounces seamlessly between jangly indie, sardonic and biting punk, and DEVO-esque new wave. His themes range from extreme sentimentality to bleak desperation, but are always tied together with self-aware sarcasm and wit. Earley has self-produced the bulk of the Vaguess catalog, recording all instruments himself while employing a rotating cast of heavy-hitting underground musicians to deliver a tight auditory onslaught for their live performances. The 12th Vaguess album, ‘THANKS // NO THANKS’ releases digitally August 25 and on vinyl in September via Under The Gun Records.
