Aluna Francis is a queen of electronic club music: the London-based producer and singer's beats are always spot-on, not only landing in the right place, but also surrounded by subtly interspersed influences from disco, Afrobeats, house, dancehall, Caribbean club sounds, UK garage and R&B. This is reminiscent of the historical roots of electronic club music, which would be inconceivable without artists from the African diaspora such as Black Coffee and Frankie Knuckles. The whole is infused with a fresh lightness and unleashes a power that few in the realm of sophisticated electronica can match.
Aluna's engagement with the genre's roots in the Afro-diasporic and queer nightlife scenes is the result of her first career as one half of the duo AlunaGeorge, with whom she enjoyed incredible success. After a decade as one of the few black women at the forefront of an otherwise white male-dominated scene, her 2020 solo debut 'Renaissance' heralded a turning point, drawing attention to the communities that fuel club music and gathering an ever-growing core of black and LGBTQ+ artists around her. The successor "MYCELiUM" (2023) refers in its title to the underground cell network that connects the energy and nutrients of different plants across barriers, is rich in collaborations like its predecessor and creates a network that allows diverse sonic influences to flow easily into the tracks.
