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Your support makes all the difference.The mid-twenties London duo of Aluna Francis and George Reid met at a house party, got themselves hyped onto the January ones-to-watch lists, but properly broke big with their guest spot on Disclosure's deep-house revival smash "White Noise", and followed that with their own attitude-packed "Attracting Flies" (as in "everything you exhale is..."), one of the year's great put-down songs. Their debut album doesn't so much fulfil that promise as miraculously over-deliver.
With Aluna's breathy and bewitching burnt-sugar voice, George's deliciously pastel-splashed beats and bleeps, and imagery as poetic as "nothing else makes me weightless like your light-reflecting gaze", it's an assured collection of pure pop with an independent sensibility, equal parts Kylie and The XX.
The consistent mid-tempo mood alters only at the end, first with will-they-won't-they ballad "Friends To Lovers", then with an out-of-the-blue cover of Montell Jordan's swingbeat classic "This Is How We Do It" (relocated from LA to London). Which makes a little more sense than it initially appears. Because if there's one thing AlunaGeorge have proven, it's that it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it.
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