The pair, Justin Walshaw and Amber Skye, started playing music together after they saw American experimental band Gang Gang Dance in London at a show with ''kids going mental'', simple beats, and a blown-up keyboard.
''[We've known each other] about 12 years'', guitarist Walshaw says from behind the desk at his day job.
''We've been married for about eight. We're both from the same swamp in the North Island. The psycho-geography of a place really interests me, how the environment shapes people.
Our hometown is big skies and wind and bad hair and cows. But all these artists came out of there - the chefs, the painters and bands like Flamin' Werepigs. Dunedin's climate has a different effect.
''[After we saw Gang Gang Dance] we thought we could do that [laughs]. So we came back to Dunedin, bought a Macbook - Garageband. The first album was out by April 2012.''
The pair's first album, Here Is Where You Are, released by Dunedin independent label Lttl Paisly was a fuzzy affair: noise and hypnotic Casiotone beats setting a groovy, almost hip-hop base for the duo's contrasting vocal styles.
On Inside a Replica City, things stick pretty closely to that winning formula, with the sweet hooks delivered with the same lo-fi charm.
''The first record, we were recording straight into the Mac's internal microphone. And layering tracks up. Real fuzzy, one room. This album we used the whole house, [and] we brought in a producer - Tommy Thomas. He had cables all over the place. Vocals in the kitchen, guitars in the lounge, turn the fridge off, the phone would ring.''
Distractions such as these seem somehow intrinsically tied to Strange Harvest. Lyrically, their witty social commentary is equal parts funny and horrifyingly true.
''When you're writing about mass-media or dystopia it pays to keep a sense of humour,'' Walshaw says.
''I have pages and pages of lyrics filled with tweets from Lindsay Lohan. I don't think she actually exists. Why should she? I've never met her. She is an emoticon. She is very smiley face.
''Replica City is kinda my take on Bret Easton Ellis' ''Glamorama''. The Victor Ward complex. This other voice. Being mistaken for someone else. The better you look, the more you see. All these slogans. These Lindsay Lohans.
''There used to be this line in the song about getting emails from Susan Sarandon about how old Scarlet Johannsson is. I mean, this stuff happens, it's right there in front of us.''
Strange Harvest celebrates the release of Inside a Replica City next Friday at Queens.
Die! Die! Die! and Trick Mammoth play an all-ages show from 4pm at the same venue.
See them
Inside a Replica City, Strange Harvest album release party with guests Opposite Sex and Murderbike, Friday, May 31, Queens Bar (1 Queens Gardens), 9pm.
Listen to the album via strangeharvest.bandcamp.com/album/inside-a-replica-city-2
