Hometown: Texas and Amsterdam.
The lineup: Erin Kleh (vocals, guitar), Tash ter Braak (vocals, guitar), Paul Durbin (percussion), and Nicolas Cornu (guitar).
The background: Texan ex-pat Erin Kleh and Dutch émigré Tash der Braak look, and sound, like such nice girls. Or at least they do until you listen past the briskly strummed guitars and jolly, jaunty melodies and pay attention to what they're singing. The first track we played by this unsigned duo (and band), Heart Out, seemed, at first, almost offensively inoffensive. Then we played it again and we heard what turns out to feature a typically Erin K and Tash-ish contrast between amiable tunefulness and acid wit. How so? Well, the lyrics are about what the boy in the song is going to have to do to make the female protagonist forget about him now that they've split up, and this happens to include: tearing out her heart, sucking the air from her lungs, gouging out her eyeballs, and severing her head. The sort of things, it occurs to Erin K, or possibly Tash, that a chef would do to a lobster, "only much less humane".
It's all very Bridget Jones, or Sex and the City relocated from SoHo to Soho. More songs about MacBooks and small penises. Sometimes, the dinner-party pleasantness of the songs and single-entendre ribaldry of the lyrics cast Erin K and Tash as a musical Mel and Sue, or a female Flight of the Conchords. They call what they do "anti-folk", but this is a million campfires away from Devendra Banhart or Kimya Dawson. They might sing about fuck buddies and sexual frustration, but you could imagine them doing this stuff on a revamped Pebble Mill at One. OK, maybe Pebble Mill at One in the Morning.
You could certainly picture Alan Titchmarsh introducing Jiggy Miggy, and its tale of stalking a hot barman with a giant member and a no-strings approach to sex. "I know you're not mine, and that's just fine," they sing, striking a wistful note. Yes, Titchmarsh would love that one. We're not sure what Clippety-Clop is about, apart from "a bloke who sells peanuts on the street, puts sand in his weed, and sugar in his speed". Nor is it exactly clear what point they're making on Sorry I'm Not Black, but we love the way it rhymes "African people" and "steeple" and "hardcore style" with "caucasian denial". Dennis Rodman gets a namecheck, and so does Amy Winehouse, and if it's racist ("A nightmare for you would be sex with a ghost"), it would be towards white people.
On The Sexy Cupcake they return to their specialist subject: think an updated These Boots Are Made for Walking, only with spoon-licking and extra creamy icing. By Anorexic Girl, it's all got a bit Phoebe from Friends and you start to OD on whimsy. Luckily, there are straighter numbers in their repertoire such as Oh Well, and Coins, which has a fuller, poppier arrangement and is worthy of Suzanne Vega, the greatest of all the rock Vegas, apart from Alan.
The buzz: "Somewhere in the world Erin K & Tash are together, laughing and singing about how small your penis is" – attnmagazine.co.uk.
The truth: They're an R-rated Pam Ayres for Generation Y.
Most likely to: Make a meal – and get a song – out of moist muffins.
Least likely to: Cover Suicide's Frankie Teardrop.
What to buy: The single Coins/Sexy Cupcake is released on 21 November.
File next to: Emmy the Great, Pam Ayres, Mel and Sue, Flight of the Conchords.
Friday's new band: NZCA Lines.