Flight of the Conchords
We begin with the two men in their younger years, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, students in Wellington, New Zealand and the year of Flight of the Conchords genesis, 1998 A.D. From there, things move quickly: regional shows, wider exposure, international comedy festivals, awards, respect, admiration, an eponymous HBO television series, and the captured hearts of a nation at large. (That was quick.)
In the mid-summer of 2007, Sub Pop Records released a six track Grammy Award-nominated (it’s true!) CDEP, The Distant Future. Simply, it destroyed.
Thus, it hath come to pass that a full-length album, helpfully titled Flight of the Conchords, has been recorded and very likely–in some form or another–accompanies this piece of paper or digital detritus.
The record: produced by Mickey Petralia (Beck Midnight Vultures, Ladytron Light & Magic) in Los Angeles, New York and Wellington. It features fully fleshed-out and professionally recorded versions of Flight of the Conchords concert and television favorites, rendering pointless all the inexpert fan-made audio transfers (the modern day equivalent of holding a microphone up to the television speaker and shouting at your mom to be quiet), which have bloated hard drives the world over. The songs are heard here in expanded but reverent arrangements. Bret and Jemaine’s trademark acoustic guitars lead the blitz, backed by a diverse array of instrumentation and production technique.
Flight of the Conchords set the bar high after their self-titled debut album. The new one, I Told You I Was Freaky, does not disappoint though and is a compilation of gems from the second HBO season. In Hurt Feelings, we find they're posing as rappers who entertain with the unlikely rhyme pairing, "I feel like a prize asshole" with "No one even mentions my casserole." Oh the tears of a rapper!
Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor treats listeners to a techno-pop version of Jermaine and Bret. "Make sure you know before you go, the dance floor bro-hoe ratio. 5 to 1 is a brodeo." It's every man's disco nightmare. On Carol Brown we hear the lamenting of a man over his lost loves. A chorus of old girlfriends chimes in, explaining why he's an ex. At one point he sings, "Shut up girlfriends from the past."
I Told You I Was Freaky may be the last album pitched by Flight of the Conchords. With the frenetic pace the band has needed to maintain, the possibility of burnout is high. But for now, there's plenty to relish.
MUST HAVE RELEASE
I Told You I was Freaky