Just Dance Music

22 December 2012 | 5:59 pm | Cyclone Wehner

“Whenever I try to describe what we do, I just say what I say to my Grandma: We make dance music and it’s around this beat – and that’s about it!”

More Disclosure More Disclosure

The post-dubstep Disclosure – brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence – crossed over with the soulful single Latch, featuring little-known vocalist Sam Smith. And they're only going to get bigger, an album due in early 2013. The duo, who recently toured the UK alongside key champion Annie Mac, are closing the year with their inaugural Australian festival dates.

For Guy, the older Lawrence at 20 years, 2012 has brought countless highlights, not necessarily obvious. “Latch is definitely one of them – it got to No. 11 in the UK charts, which is incredible luck, completely unexpected and, yeah, amazing,” he enthuses. “The Annie Mac tour was fun, but we've been to Ibiza a few times this year and we played amazing shows there – one in particular was in Space, that was one of the best shows of the year. And we got to do a full American tour, which was awesome 'cause we've never been to America. We played in LA on Halloween, which was really good, 'cause everyone was dressed up and they just had really good vibes – [it was] really good fun.” The idea of Disclosure showcasing their avant blend of UK deep house, garage and bass music in LA, Skrillex's base, let alone on the David Guetta-ruled Ibiza, is bizarre, yet they're leading a revolution of their own.

Disclosure, still resembling schoolboys, have had a major impact in a relatively short time. They aired their first single, Offline Dexterity, on Moshi Moshi in 2010. This year Disclosure upped the ante, beginning with Tenderly/Flow. Next they issued their acclaimed The Face EP on the Joe Goddard-associated Greco-Roman. Latch came out later through PMR Records.

Much has been made of the Lawrences' youth, the pair primary schoolers when MJ Cole's Sincere, a Disclosure template, materialised in 2000. What's more, the lads hail from Surrey – no bass epicentre (Croydon was absorbed into Greater London during the '60s). “Not a lot happens in Surrey, I can confirm that,” Guy quips. In fact, the brothers were raised in a musical family, their father a pro (and prog-rock lovin') guitarist and mother a singer.

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As Guy tells it, when he and Howard took up producing three years ago, they were tuned into contemporary dubstep – as exemplified by Croydon's Skream and Benga. But the scene quickly changed. “It was when dubstep was turning bad,” says Guy, presumably referring to the rise of brostep. “That was when I first started going out to clubs. I used to hear that stuff and, I donno, it was kinda getting worse and worse.” They'd find fresh inspiration in the output of Joy Orbison, Floating Points and Ramadanman (or Pearson Sound). “They did dubstep with chords and melodies – I didn't know that dubstep could be like this. So we got really into that sound – and that was pretty much what we based our sound on at the start. We were just basically trying to copy Joy Orbison – well, not copy him, but copy the mixdowns and learn how to produce by listening to that music. And Burial as well – when he dropped his album Untrue, that was a massive turning point. We were like, 'Okay, we really need to start producing' – 'cause we already knew how to play instruments, like drums and guitar and stuff, but we never thought we'd start producing tracks until that happened.

“Since then, our influences have got older and older. We like more people like MJ Cole and Artful Dodger and Todd Edwards and Zed Bias and the old school garage heads – I guess because we wanted to know what people like Joy Orbison's influences were, and Ramadanman's influences were, [and] James Blake's influences were… It was not until we knew those people that we found out about the whole history of house music and techno and everything. But it's been a weird journey, 'cause we've almost started producing before we knew the roots of it all.” Indeed, that odyssey surely accounts for Disclosure's style, which is paradoxically retro and futuristic – and perfectly timed for a house revival.

The siblings have a smooth dynamic. “I sometimes forget we're brothers – it's like we're mates now, we're just kinda mates who hang out a lot,” Guy laughs. “I think working with your brother is good because you can be totally honest with them in the studio. You don't really hold back – if you have an opinion on something, you just say it. But it's always constructive. We're never really bitter and [we don't] fall out about anything. We're really chilled.” They do have assigned roles, with Guy, who's studied music technology, the producer and the teenaged Howard the composer. (Both sing.)

Disclosure are recording their debut album. “If you take our EP The Face, that's a good indication of what it's gonna be like,” Guy reveals. “It'll be a mixture of fully vocal tunes – like Latch and Control, Boiling – and then there'll be some instrumental tracks on there, like What's In Your Head, and ones with samples as well. We wanna keep a balance. We also wanna make sure there's a variety of speed on there, 'cause we don't just wanna do a house album – I think that would be a bit monotonous and a bit boring eventually for the audience… We wanna make a nice kind of album that people can listen to – it has a few dips in there and then a few peaks, [but] it's not just one straight house record.”

The duo are inevitably tagged 'post-dubstep', yet Guy fobs off the media catchall. “I hate all the terms that people use like 'future garage' and 'bass music',” he says mildly. The latter, Guy reckons, is too reductive – Disclosure aren't about the bass, but vocals, chords and melody. “Whenever I try to describe what we do, I just say what I say to my Grandma: We make dance music and it's around this beat – and that's about it!” he laughs hopelessly. Oddly, The Guardian suggested Disclosure were “synth-pop” in a 2011 “New Band Of The Day” profile. Regardless, with Latch charting, Disclosure are transcending even the dance world. “I didn't really realise the importance of radio until it [was playlisted]. Once you start getting regular plays on national radio especially, your audience just expands so rapidly – and to people who would never, ever hear your music.” Does Grandma dig Latch, then? ”I think she does, yeah! My Mum definitely does.”

If Disclosure have confirmed a release date for their LP, Guy isn't saying, though it's reported to be March. They're in no apparent hurry. “We were gonna do another single before the end of the year, but we're not now 'cause Latch is still doing its thing.” Instead, Disclosure are offering a remix of the Artful Dodger's 2-step “classic” Please Don't Turn Me On as a free download via Soundcloud – a Christmas pressie for fans.

Guy, “sick” of Britain's freezing conditions, is keenly anticipating Disclosure's Antipodean trek. Their set-up, while ever-evolving, is now honed. “It's a live set – I mean, we do DJ sets as well,” he explains. “But, with the live show, we run a few things off laptop with Ableton, and we control all the sounds usually using various toys and MIDI controllers, and then we have a couple of synthesisers, a couple of drum pads, and an MPC with vocal samples on it.” Oh, and there's live percussion (cowbells!).

Disclosure are also sussing out whether to throw in a bass guitar with tight luggage restrictions. What Guy isn't looking forward to is lugging their gear through airports, even if they have a tour manager to help. “We managed to pack it down into, like, three cases, but it's still quite hard work.” It's not all easy being green.

THE NEW FACE OF HOUSE

Disclosure's Radio 1 DJ buddy Annie Mac called it in 2011. Now that the Americans have taken over dubstep, the Brits (and everyone else) are all about house again. This year The 2 Bears' debut album Be Strong was a cult – and critical – hit. "I think house is just gonna carry on – I mean, in the UK, house is just back massively in clubs here, everywhere," says Guy Lawrence. "Everyone just wants to hear house music now. It's great. I think that will continue."

Guy's artist picks? "There's a guy called Shadow Child whose new EP is amazing – I got it the other day, it's absolutely sick. He's making kinda similar stuff to us, with chords and samples, but really heavy stuff made for the club as well." In fact, Shadow Child is a novel Fake Blood-style guise for UK oldtimer Dave Spoon (AKA Simon Neale). His String Thing on Dirtybird has been huge. Then, says Guy, the post-dubstep techno resurgence is continuing with new kid Happa. "He's 15-years-old," the Disclosure man says, "and he makes, like, really brutal Detroit techno."

Detroit techno is far from fossilised for post-dubsteppers. (James Blake has even lauded Theo Parrish' tech-house.) DJ Mag devoted its September issue to the UK's techno revival with cover stars Blawan and Pariah, now working together as Karenn. "I think the sound of it influences a lot of what you're hearing today, even if what you're hearing is not like it," Guy says of the Motor City legacy. "But it definitely is creeping into more and more peoples' DJ sets – and whenever that happens, people start going out and hearing it and then they go home and they wanna make it." Disclosure themselves have been studying their 'techno godfathers'. "We got to watch Juan Atkins the other day, which was awesome."

Disclosure will be playing the following dates:

Monday 31 December - Summadayze, Rymill Park, Adelaide SA
Tuesday 1 January - Field Day, The Domain, Sydney NSW
Saturday 5 January - Summadayze, Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 6 January - Summadayze, Patersons Stadium, Subiaco WA