album review: alunageorge, body music
It feels like AlunaGeorge’s Your Drums, Your Love has been out forever. It’s been out 10 months specifically, which is basically forever in the ever-changing, internet-driven world of popular music. But it’s only now that the track has found a home, on the English duo’s long awaited album, Body Music. The electronic pair, a little bit 90’s, a little bit rnb, have benefited from the embrace of airy, electro-pop production and dreamy vocals, and have successfully ridden that trend to, first blogger, and then wider popularity. The album plays to the duo’s strengths, mainly the aforementioned production and vocals. Aluna Francis’ vocals are lush and breathy, pretty much a requirement if you want to sing on anything that identifies as ‘electronic’. But it’s the production of George Reid that has always carried the project, and the situation is no different on the album. The sounds he has set this record to are light and woozy, and lean heavily on synth, handclaps, pop-lock beats and a skewed rnb/house/pop hybrid.
Early in to the album is the familiar I Know You Like It, another release from last year that’s finally found an album to call home. The tune is a perfect example of the way the duo balances the lilty vocals of Francis and the sharp production from Reid. Thus, the rest of the album proceeds in much the same way, with variations on the theme. Current single, Attracting Flies is one you can move to, with the whistle heavy instrumentals likely to encourage fiddler type drunken reenactments. Kaleidoscope Love is a dreamscape of colours and sounds and if AlunaGeorge ever film a clip for the track, they’d do well to set it in an actual kaleidoscope. Lost and Found is an excellent example of how the production drives this project. A grimy rnb intro gives way to a bouncy, bleepy workspace for lyrics that are vaguely anti-self empowerment. Chopped up vocals herald the album’s title track, which slows things down and can easy be identified as the album’s ‘introspective’ point, and gives Francis a lot more to work with, vocals wise.
At 14 tracks, the album does drag a little. The tighter albums are often the 10 track ones, and this definitely starts to lag, tracks blending in to one another. A bonus track tacked on to the end, a cover of Montell Jordan’s This is How We Do It, seems unnecessary, as it doesn’t really take the track in an unique way. That being said, the album is a strong debut, and proof that AlunaGeorge is capable of harnessing musical trends to create interesting and slick tracks.
