For many bands, making music is all about the routine of recording an annual album, or being able to tour in progressively bigger venues.  Not Matt and Kim.  "Our goal is to make music we want to hear," says Matt Johnson, who co-founded the band with Kim Schifino. "When it comes time to make a new album, I'm just so excited, since I know we have all these ideas and I just want to get them out there."  As for the band's extra-emphatic live shows, which these days happen in large venues, he explains, "We've always just really enjoyed playing music, and things have kept growing." 
 
Matt and Kim's enthusiasm comes across loud and clear on the band's last album, Lightning, its most diverse and developed to date.  From the relentless drive of “Now” to the dance-fueled beat of “Let’s Go” to the more contemplative “Ten Dollars I Found,” Lightning is the strongest distillation yet of Matt and Kim’s unique sound: a spunky hybrid of indelible songs, an emphatic beat and almost tangible energy, mixed with the duo’s influence of listening nonstop to Top 40 Hip-Hop and pop-punk.
 
To make the album, Matt and Kim spent six months working in their home studio in Brooklyn, producing the record themselves. Lightning is a touch more minimal than their earlier work – with layers taken away, instead of added, enabling its intense performances and memorable tunes to really come to the forefront. “What’s made the songs on this album really strong is we’ve been able to pull a lot off – to not have so much going on – and still have a strong song,” Kim explains.
 
“It’s easier to make a song with a lot going on,” Matt adds. “It feels very safe. It’s like putting on a lot of clothes: you feel all covered up so no one can judge just one aspect of it, but when you try to break it down to be as simple as can be, you’re really baring it all.  When you can see clearly what’s going on, those are the times that the songs are easiest to connect to.”
 
Connecting with their audience is certainly a key focus for Matt and Kim.  The indie dance duo’s live shows – which are legendary for constant, in-your-face exuberance – feel more like vibrant, sweaty loft parties than traditional concerts, for both audiences and the band. “I think we’ve managed to continue to make them feel intimate,” says Matt. “When we first started playing venues instead of playing on the floor at parties, we tried hard to keep the vibe of ‘we’re all doing this together and having a wild time’ going.  The show is not just the two of us: it’s the 3002 of us, or however big the venue is.”  Or, as in the words of Rolling Stone: “Matt and Kim’s reputation as a live act precedes them – and justifiably so. Simply put, they are a two-person dynamo, frantic, tightly wound, and full of good cheer. Their performances are as physical as they are musical. . . . For sheer adrenaline-per-second, no other band comes close.”

The band started in 2004, essentially by accident when Matt and Kim were art students at the prestigious Pratt Institute, where they studied film and illustration, respectively.  When Kim wanted to learn to play drums and Matt (who'd been in bands before) was getting his head around a new keyboard, the band was born. Since then, they have earned a Gold Record for the upbeat, stick-in-your-head track "Daylight," played festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo, along with international festivals like V (U.K), Pukkelpop (Belgium), Fuji (Japan), Big Day Out (Australia), Primavera (Spain), Oya (Norway), SWU (Brazil), as well as hundreds of shows. They have won 3 MTV awards: a Breakthrough Video Music Award and mtvU Best Video Woodie Award for “Lessons Learned”, as well as a 2011 award for Best Live Band. Lightning is the band's fourth album, following Sidewalks, Grand, and their self-titled debut.
 
Matt and Kim have always been inspired by Brooklyn’s general urban din as well as the area’s artists, yet Matt points out, “I don’t think a place can define a person. We simply write songs about us and our life so that’s why where we live comes up.”
 
Indeed, there’s something universal about a song with a beat that grabs you, with a great melody, played by a band that simply loves to play music.  And that, in Williamsburg and way beyond, is the key to the universal appeal of Matt and Kim.

For the past 7 years, "Social Experiment" has been the name of Jonny White’s internationally acclaimed series of Social Experiment showcases that have been an essential brand for the worlds top clubs and music festivals since it’s inception. From instalments in Panorama Bar and Fabric to DC10, these events have set the tone for a new project and new sound that White plans to concentrate his latest efforts on. The new catalogue promises to focus on a raw, dubby, industrial and brooding style of techno, a direction that has been transparent in Art Department shows as of late with much of the early catalogue being present in his sets.

This newly inspired project has also been launched as a partnership with hometown friends Nitin and former Art Department band-mate Kenny Glasgow in support of an issue very close to their hearts—animal rights. White has recently begun work on a charity project with long time friend and Pulse Radio founder Wade Cawood - called MAAC (Music Against Animal Cruelty). The charity will act as a fund with plans to galvanize the support of the electronic music industry and to help raise money to protect African wildlife facing the threat of diminishing population or extinction. Social Experiment will serve as a non profit record label with 100% of all net proceeds donated to MAAC.

About MAAC:
MAAC (Music Against Animal Cruelty) is a non profit organization with one simple directive: to save African wildlife. MAAC is a vehicle conceived by Jonny White of Art Department fame and long time friend and founder of Pulse Radio, Wade Cawood, to act as a broker between musicians, music industry and music fans alike, and organizations who are working on initiatives to save various animals facing the dangers of a diminishing population and/or extinction. Ultimately MAAC's objectives will extend to curating large scale events in hopes of raising substantial funds, allowing us to curate our own initiatives in Africa. In the interim we will be working as a "fund" to which anyone can contribute. We in turn will select various "grassroots" initiatives as beneficiaries. Whether it be to save lesser known animals who desperately need our help like the Wild Dog, or to enable Rangers to educate land-owners and farmers as to how they can safely utilize their land to produce crops or livestock without harming local wildlife, our mission is to help. 

Wildlife conservation in Africa is an issue near and dear to our hearts. We have come to realize that there is an often overlooked opportunity for artists and fans who are passionate about this issue to make a difference. Our plan is to galvanize the support of the music industry—a worldwide collective of likeminded individuals who together can make a significant difference in Africa.

Social Experiment is a non-profit record label. 100% of net proceeds from sales of this record will go towards conserving wildlife in Africa.

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