AlunaGeorge – Body Music review | #FromTheArchive

For­get Kim and Kanye. Alu­na Fran­cis and George Reid (aka Alu­na­George) are the pow­er cou­ple of 2013 – whether it is a roman­tic rela­tion­ship, as well as a cre­ative one, is for the papz and gos­sip rags to pon­der. Togeth­er, they’ve made an elec­tro-pop album filled with addic­tive rhythms that also makes self-assured scoops at the emo­tion­al ups and downs of get­ting into a rela­tion­ship. In a post-Girls, post-online-dat­ing-is-social­ly-accept­able age, you won’t find an album that’s so 2013.

‘You Know You Like It’, the song that thrust them onto the scene and earned them a place as run­ner-up of the BBC Sound of 2013 list, is a play­ful club-bel­ter and one of the strongest exam­ples of the duo’s musi­cal part­ner­ship. Backed by Reid’s house beat with a video game-esque twin­kle, Francis’s airy vocals sound out, diva-like, teas­ing, invit­ing you to come clos­er. Inti­ma­cy is the intent and Body Music has been shaped to achieve that from head to toe.

Through her hon­ey­suck­le, estu­ary-accent­ed voice, Fran­cis charms on ‘Kalei­do­scope Love’, and chas­tis­es on ‘Bad Idea’. Mean­while, Reid’s twitchy sounds back her up through­out, with audi­ble mus­cle when the time calls for atti­tude (‘Attract­ing Flies’) and unhur­ried com­fort dur­ing her soft con­fes­sions (‘Super­star’).

The final track, ‘Friends to Lovers’, tells us all we need to know about Fran­cis and Reid’s rela­tion­ship. What­ev­er the real­i­ty, Body Music is a seduc­tive affair that you should engage in.

Body Music was released on Island Records in July 2013. Alu­na is cur­rent­ly releas­ing new music as a solo artist. Read more about her jour­ney in this inter­view.

If you like this artist, check out: Shu­ra, SG Lewis, Aadae

[This arti­cle was first pub­lished on aaronlee.co.uk on Decem­ber 20, 2013.]

Image: Fiona Garden/PR