AlunaGeorge

London's duo AlunaGeorge (singer-songwriter Aluna Francis and producer George Reid) emerged with uninspired electro-pop for the new decade on You Know You Like It (released online in 2011), Your Drums Your Love (2012) and the (thankgod) more upbeat White Noise (2013), a collaboration with Disclosure.

The first album, Body Music (2013), simply showcases their love for the r&b productions of the late 1990s (Timbaland, The Neptunes). Just A Touch fulfills the promises of those singles, and the ballad Outlines enters neo-soul territory with deserved confidence. The most daring songs, the frantic two-step Lost & Found and Kaleidoscope Love (the prettiest rhythm on the album), sound like amateurish parodies of Flying Lotus' futuristic soul but perhaps hint at what the duo's original style could be. Attracting Flies is a sensible compromise between their lame imitations of the 1990s and these more forward looking experiments. But mostly this is a tedious exercise in nostalgia that adds only three or four songs to their canon. It should have been just an EP.

I Remember (2016), full of guests and coproducers, boasted a more powerful sound and a lot more variety, as displayed in the single I'm in Control (2016), a collaboration with Jamaican dancehall vocalist Popcaan that is curiously reminiscent of Shakira, and in the hysterical orchestral Heartbreak Horizon. Unfortunately, the amount of filler was even bigger than on the first album.

The six-song EP Champagne Eyes (2018) tried to restore some dignity with the downtempo ballad Superior Emotion.