Flight Of The Conchords is a Grammy Award-winning New Zealand folk-comedy
duo comprising of former University film and theatre students Bret McKenzie and
Jamie Clement. In the past, they’ve billed themselves as ‘Formerly New Zealand’s
fourth most popular guitar based digi-bongo a capella-rap-funk-comedy-folk-duo.
This is their debut full-length debut. On it, they take the proverbial mickey using
various styles of music. Foux du Fafa is a classy start as they bang-on
about the people who try their hand at learning a second language – in this case
French.
The gist is, they claim, that we seldom achieve a proper level of conversational skills
opting to recite conversational sentences they have learned, all to the fluid,
cool and continental breezy shuffle, sounding somewhere between Swiss outfit
Yello or Fun Lovin’ Criminals. For Inner City Pressure, they use Pet
Shop Boys’ West End Girls as a basis for their slant on 21st century urban
life.
They also target naff Hip Hop through songs Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
and Boom adopting a pseudo American accent which they do superbly, using mashed
up and silly lyrics with great effect. Then they go for social issues a la
Marvin Gaye (What’s Going On?) and Black Eyed Peas (Where Is The Love), via brilliant
soul stylings.
Bowie, is, well, about 70s icon David Bowie. Their vocal mimicry is
outstanding, even getting the Dame’s voice to a ‘t’, whilst referencing many of
his songs including Fame.
Leggy Blonde parodies love ballads that, inanely, contain little more
than descriptors of the lover.
1. Foux du Fafa
2. Inner City Pressure
3. Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros
4. Think About It
5. Ladies Of The World
6. Mutha’uckas
7. The Prince Of Parties
8. Leggy Blonde (featuring Rhys Derby)
9. Robots
10. Boom
11. A Kiss Is Not A Contract
12. The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)
13. Business Time
14. Bowie
15. Au Revoir
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Review & concert pics copyright © Elly Roberts, 2004-2008.
