The best pop is often a triumph of either style or substance. But every now and again a band comes along packing both a surface breeze and a depth charge. Thanks to the kittenish vocals of Aluna Francis, a sometime model who comes over like a cross between Aaliyah and Lily Allen, London-based duo AlunaGeorge are ever so easy on the ear. But virtually every track on their debut makes you clamp your headphones on harder. That's mainly due to George Reid, a producer who combines a love for the late 90s eccentricities of Timbaland and the Neptunes with a thoroughly London state of mind.
Theirs is not a case of boffin meets siren-for-hire. AlunaGeorge is a 50/50 partnership. Often, Francis's lyrics are just as distinctive as George's manipulations, defying the current R&B logic of just throwing some attitude out there. "If you wanna train me like an animal," she purrs, logically, "you'd better keep your eyes on my every move." Mostly, Francis asserts her independence or ponders love with a refreshing lack of vocal drama.
Everyone has been talking about this band for so long that Body Music has felt like ages in the making, rather than the mere year-and-a-bit. The duo first surfaced online in 2011. By the end of 2012 they had become the most-blogged-about outfit going, having staked out their territory – mainstream R&B with a deep twist – with a virtuoso single, Your Drums, Your Love. Their collaboration with Disclosure, the seductive White Noise, made it to No2 in February. To date, about a quarter of Body Music is already out there in some form. Familiarity decrees that these remain AlunaGeorge's best bits. The shamelessly catchy You Know You Like It first came out as an EP on Tri Angle, a bespoke electronic label with more edge than a tetrahedron. It doesn't sound wildly emasculated here on Island, keeping Reid's bassy thrum, his random shimmers and the bit that sounds like an elephant trumpeting (a nod, you hope, to Timbaland). Attracting Flies, a single with a memorable depiction of lying – "everything you exhale is attracting flies," sneers Francis – remains some way off its sell-by date. Your Drums, Your Love? Still great.
The rest is by no means sub par. Indeed, if no one had heard a note of AlunaGeorge's output thus far, this filler would still be causing serious ripples. Many bands would seriously damage their grandmothers for AlunaGeorge's merely all-right songs – like Outlines, a low-key choice for the album's first track. Further down the tracklisting, momentum sometimes lapses into a kind of glitchy-coo mush. Kaleidoscope Love is not their finest hour: you can tell that from the title.
Then they wake up again. Lost and Found is a ticklish two-step that would have kept the pace on Disclosure's recent album, or Katy B's debut. Reid can do East postcodes as well as he can Virginia Beach (the teenage stomping grounds of both Tim Mosley and Pharrell Williams). Every single song here announces itself with a chopped-up, pitch-shifted vocal sample, or a stark hook, or some laptop equivalent of a clarion call. The final track before the bonus section, Friends to Lovers, is quite dazzling. This is like D'Angelo gone digital, soul magicked out of watery wobbles, tweaked analogue organs and what sound like scrunched sweet wrappers falling down stairs. Up top, Francis glides along, deliciously unresolved about a relationship. The hype was not wrong.
