You pray I’ll stay in the sun

But that’s not what I’m made of

That’s not what I’m made of

Over the year, AlunaGeorge grew the fuck all over me. I started out looking at their music with a slightly exaggerated yawn. Except for the Black Light Dinner Party cover of “Your Drums, Your Love’ nothing about their initial foray into the world of pop stardom made me anything but  soporifically nonplussed. Somewhere in July, though, I realized Aluna Francis has some edge to her songwriting. after “You Know You Like It” (and the insanely awesome DJ Snake Remix) dropkicked me in the face, becoming my summer jam.

It’s a tough line to straddle: that delicate balance between ‘insular, self-empowerment, ha-ha fuck you world’ and ‘oh, cry with me now all you fellow weepy minions because my life’s so shit’ versions of the anthem. But Aluna has that line burned into shaky sand floating over a pit of toothy taunters and tightropes it like a Cirque De Soleil champ.

Nowhere is that clearer than in this song when she looks with a weary, tired eye of derision at someone who expects that their presence, that the structures and corners they built for her turn through, will turn her into a beacon of light.  She says I’ve ‘still got sugar’, and I’m sweet in my own fucking way, but don’t ever expect me to dance outside the darkness: that’s a bit of where my homeland is.

Lovelife do an intensely great job (as they did with their remix of Dive In’s “Let Go” we covered) of giving the track that rhythmic romp through loneliness, never letting the lyrics rest on their laurels. Lovelife has an ear for atmospheric synth punctuated with the perfect level of moments of exasperated outcry and their production skills here are top notch.

Follow Lovelife on Soundcloud.

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