In-flight entertainment

FOR me, Flight Of The Conchords provided the comedy highlight of 2007. Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, "New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk parodists", cropped up with precious little fanfare on my favourite channel, the bookish, quiet and enriching BBC4, and instantly captured my heart with their downbeat, dim-bulb personae and contrastingly pin-sharp compositions.

If you didn't catch it at the time, the series basically concerned Jemaine and Bret's doomed efforts to achieve showbiz success by relocating to New York, aided in no significant sense by their equally addle-pated manager Murray (the brilliant Rhys Darby) and stalked at every turn by their sole fan Mel (the completely adorable Kristen Schaal).

Perhaps uniquely for a comedy programme, everyone functioned as the straight man. Every conversational exchange, no matter how surreal or fanciful, was conducted with poker-faced solemnity. The pathos of their situation, their childish mood swings and follies, was so subtly yet keenly observed that the series would have merited classic status for that alone; but the jewel in the crown was the way the action was obliquely commented upon and illuminated by Jemaine and Bret's songs, which were fully realised, cunningly crafted, full-blown fantasy interludes.

Their "real-life" selves in the series could barely string two chords together, yet here they were slyly referencing and richly taking the wee-wee out of The Pet Shop Boys (Inner City Pressure), Eminem (Hiphopotamus Vs Rhymenoceros), Marvin Gaye (Think About It), David Bowie (er, Bowie) and frothy French 60s pop (Foux Du Fafa).

All of these songs are on the freshly-released Flight Of The Conchords album, and a joy they are too. You would have to say, though, that they lose a little something when taken out of the context provided by the TV series - an odd situation considering that the songs were written before the series was even conceived.

Crushingly, my two favourite songs from the series aren't included on the album, namely the Ebony And Ivory-style epic Pencils In The Wind ("brown paper, white paper, stick it together with the tape, the tape of love") and Jemaine's chummy attempt to cheer up his lovelorn friend, Bret You Got It Goin' On, which takes a disquieting turn as Jemaine sings about putting a wig on the sleeping Bret and spooning him.

The album won't cause you any pain whatsoever, but for the full effect you really need to buy the series DVD, which I strongly urge you to do. Buy it right now, in fact: I'll wait here.

In other news, it's heartening to be able to report on the imminent release of a new album by Joan As Police Woman, namely To Survive. Joan Wasser, for it is she, first came to prominence for her work with Anthony And The Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright, although some still think of her as the muse who inspired the sadly-missed Jeff Buckley to write Everybody Here Wants You.

As befits someone whose artistic life has revolved around idiosyncratic, striking vocalists, Joan has a ravishing voice, positively lit from within. You couldn't exactly refer to her as a song stylist - her inspiration seems to have an altogether purer motive than the mere pursuit of an individual approach - but she nevertheless inhabits her songs in a manner which is entirely her own. She opens her mouth and her life tumbles out, beautifully.

To Survive is slow burning and torchy throughout, steadfastly refusing to pick up its skirts and break into a run, but all the more stately and measured for that. The songs, mostly constructed around Joan's careful, spectral piano parts, combine Satie-like minimalism with unusual chord sequences which sound as though they are feeling their way out of darkness - a fitting image for a set of compositions which seek to shed light on a whole bundle of conflicting emotions.

Now, the last thing I was expecting to find on my desk this week was a cheque for £28m from the National Lottery. However, in joint first place as regards unlikelihood was the appearance of a new album by 70s disco doily Tina Charles, and yet the latter contingency did indeed arise.

Listen 2 The Music has a mighty arm-wrestle on its hands in the first instance just to get over its own title, which combines clumsy textspeak with uncomfortable memories of George Michael's over-earnest Listen Without Prejudice (I did, it was awful).

However, once past this point you can appreciate the fact that Tina's strong, precise, instantly recognisable voice hasn't lost one iota of its range, clarity and projection in the intervening 30-odd years since her flicky-haired heyday. I was admittedly disappointed that the album didn't herald a shocking artistic reinvention - and crushed to hear drum programmes throughout as opposed to a living, breathing, sweating and farting drummer - but provided you're ok with the prospect of new recordings of Dance Little Lady Dance, I Love To Love, Blame It On The Boogie (offered to Tina before The Jacksons, fact fans) and I Can't Stand The Rain, you'll be in stretchy disco pant clover.