Early this week,
Bret McKenzie and
Jemaine Clement, comedy duo and stars of HBO's
Flight of the Conchords, released
The Distant Future, an EP containing six tracks, three of which are live cuts. The tracks featured in the EP are “Business Time,” “If You're Into It,” “I'm Not Crying,” “The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room,” “Banter,” and “Robots.”
McKenzie and Clement, New Zealand's fourth most popular folk-parody act, have been active in the industry since 1988. They rose to prominence in the United States thanks to the video-hosting website, YouTube, which featured videos of the pair starring in their first HBO series,
One Night Stand.
Although the
Flight of the Conchords series is filmed in New York, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement decided to record most of their EP and their forthcoming album in a Pasadena studio with producer Mickey Petralia.
"It was fun," McKenzie told the
Los Angeles Times last month. "A lot of our songs allude to a style, but when we went into the studio this time, we really pushed it and went a little further than just alluding."
The pair's music is an essential part of HBO's
Flight of The Conchords, which features exaggerated versions of Bret Mckenzie and Jemaine Clement as lead characters. The comedy duo periodically breaks out into song parodies in each episode of the series.
"We all have quite broad musical tastes," series co-creator James Bobin said in an interview with
The Boston Globe. "The history of music video is very interesting, and I think this is quite a good way of reflecting their musical diversity."
“Think About It,” a parody of current-events-conscious pop balladry, “Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros,” a pseudo hip-hop battle song, and “A Song for Sally,” a mockery of Elton John-style piano balladry, are only some of the many song parodies performed by the duo in the series.
"I like the idea of people going through the shows and trying to work it out -- where these things are from and who we're referencing," Bobin said. "I hope that's one of the levels on which the show works."
-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Boston Globe, Louisville Courier Journal, Star-Telegram, Los Angeles Times
(Image Courtesy of Sub Pop)