They aren’t half laid-back, the Bird and the Bee. Inara George, the singing, female half of the duo, greets the first question of our meeting with the same dreamy detachment with which a toddler might consider a butterfly. “I’m still a little bit asleep,” she says, blinking her big brown eyes and leaning forward to try to concentrate. A blissful cocoon seems to be enveloping her and her songwriting partner, the keyboardist Greg Kurstin, on this sunny morning in West London.

Which is apt, because their brand of beguiling pop exotica encourages flights of fancy. With its burnished harmonies, lilting bossa nova, fluttering electronica and sun-dappled psychedelia, their self-titled debut album is an exquisite musical fantasy. George describes it as “the sound of a 1960s futuristic musical set in Brazil”.

Fair of face and white of tooth, George and Kurstin are born-and-bred Californians who fit snugly into a lineage that includes the Beach Boys, the Byrds and countless other sun-worshippers. “The environment does affect the music somehow,” Kurstin agrees. “If it’s sunny all the time you’re not going to write really depressing songs.”

Both have glowing CVs. Kurstin, the quieter and more wry of the two, was a child jazz-piano prodigy who hauled himself off to New York to study with Jaki Byard, Charlie Mingus’s pianist. Returning to the West Coast, he produced and played with leftfield stars including Beck, Peaches, the Flaming Lips and Lily Allen (whom the Bird and the Bee are supporting on her current tour). Poppier collaborations include Sophie Ellis Bextor and Natasha Bedingfield, and his forthcoming slate features Shirley Manson and Donna Summer. “He’s like a musical freak show,” George smiles. “There’s not a lot that Greg can’t do.”

George’s pedigree isn’t too shabby, either. Her father, Lowell, was the singer, guitarist and main creative force of Little Feat, the funky blues-rockers who won critical adoration in the early 1970s. Lowell died of a heart attack when she was aged 5, but she recalls being taken out on the road, “sitting in the front of the bus and making everybody sing Take me out to the Ball Game”.

She has since made her name as a meditative singer-songwriter, with last year’s well-received All Rise album showcasing a soaring soprano that’s fit to join Brian Wilson et al in the Californian pantheon. “There are lots of singers who have inflections they fall back on like a crutch but Inara has such a pure tone,” Kurstin notes. “It’s like a Brazilian singer, Elise Regina or Astrud Gilberto.”

The pair were introduced in their native Los Angeles by the producer of All Rise, Mike Andrews, and Kurstin began playing at George’s live gigs. The shows would often culminate with the two of them performing a standard from the American songbook: You Don’t Know What Love Is, All of Me or Autumn Leaves. “Then we thought it would be fun to try to write a pop song,” Kurstin recalls. The result was Again and Again, the winsome cocktail of tambourines, hand claps and fuzzy bass that opens the album. It was followed smartly by four more, including the new single F***ing Boyfriend, with Kurstin writing the melodies and George supplying the lyrics. “Greg contributed one word,” she giggles, “which was ‘f***ing’.”

They entered into the partnership with a characteristic lack of urgency. “If this goes away we have other things, so there’s not an awful lot of pressure.” George shrugs. “After recording five tracks, we figured we may as well do five more so we had a whole album,” Kurstin says. The sessions sound like a hoot — George can be heard bursting out laughing at the end of F***ing Boyfriend. “There was a playfulness when we recorded it, something kidlike,” she agrees. “Sometimes the first vocals I laid down were the ones which ended up on the record.”

The reaction has been warm in America, with F***ing Boyfriend topping the dance chart, and the spot supporting the fast-rising Allen (for whom they have nothing but praise, despite recent allegations of brattishness on this side of the Pond). “It’s been fun because it’s been a total surprise,” George admits. “I’ve never been in a band where people have been so enthusiastic. Have you?” Kurstin shakes his head.

Neither, though, seems particularly interested in world domination. “We don’t want to be massive because we don’t like to tour too much,” George smiles. “It would be good to be massive and not have to do anything,” Kurstin adds.

Later this evening, both will manage to peel themselves off the sofa to play at North London’s Barfly club, the final gig of their British tour before they fly off to the South by South West festival in Texas. Joined by two backing singers, an acoustic guitarist and a drummer, they are in tricksy good humour.

“Anybody got any Valium?” George asks the audience, thinking of the long flight to Austin. A vision of kitsch-chic in flowery vintage frock and headband, she straps on a guitar and peforms Because (sample lyrics: “I can’t remember why I’m here” and “When I’m tired, I am so very tired”) to wry grins from Kurstin.

There’s an inch-perfect version of Do You Know the Way to San José?,a spot of robotic dancing, and then the rest of the band leave George and Kurstin to it for the finale, a rendition of Autumn Leaves that is quite mesmerising. “Thank you for being such a quiet audience!” George trills, not unpleasantly. Quiet? Not at all. We’ve all just fallen in love.

F***ing Boyfriend is out now; The Bird and the Bee LP is released on Monday by Regal Recordings

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