Disclosure Talks Their New Album And Spreading House Music Around The World – Forbes

Disclosure sporting their signature “masks” (photo by Simon Emmett)

In just one album, brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence—better known to the public as duo Disclosure—have completely changed the landscapes of both pop and electronic music. Their debut album, Settle, was a surprise success, launching several hits in their home country of the UK, including “Latch”, which helped establish both them and the featured vocalist Sam Smith. In fact, it’s quite possible that without a dance-y start, the US might never have embraced him the way we did.
Now, the Grammy-nominated brothers are prepping the launch of their sophomore album, Carcaral, which is due next Friday. Just days after that on September 29th, they will play a show in Los Angeles sponsored by AMEX, which has chosen the group as the new focus of their Unstaged program. Those that download the app (which is available now) will be able to watch the show, and even make a Disclosure “mask”, a trademark look the duo has featured in their visually-intensive live show and their music videos.
Just yesterday, Guy spoke with me from London about touring in America, choosing who they work with, and how they don’t think a song with Prince would work out very well.
Tell me about you guys working with AMEX and their Unstaged app.
We were really super excited to do it. The show itself is going to be the best and the biggest one we’ve ever brought to America by a long way.
If it’s the biggest show you’re bringing to America for the first time, do you think your upcoming tour here will be similarly sized?
Yeha. We’ll be around for a month, and we’re playing Madison Square Garden. That’s bigger than I thought we’d ever get, so I’m extremely happy that we can continue doing that.

I was looking at the tracklisting of the new album, and there are some great people on there. How do you decide who you’re going to work with on vocals?
We basically just go through our iTunes library and just pick all of our favorite artists, and most of them said yes. We’re in a very privileged position where we can ask big artists or small ones and a lot of them were up for it. A lot of them were mutual fans, and some of them wanted the opportunity as much as we did. There are people like Sam [Smith], Lorde, The Weeknd, and Miguel, but there are also a lot of up and coming artists, like Kwabs, Nao, and Jordan Rakei. We love working with a variety of people from all different genres. I mean, Gregory Porter is a jazz artist! It doesn’t matter matter where you’re from, who you are, or how big you are, it’s how great you are. That’s what we look for—a great singer. Someone we can write with. We don’t tell people what to sing or anything like that. We start from scratch with every song. As long as they can do that, we’ll work with anyone. I’m so happy we got so many amazing artists.
Do feel obligated at all to work with a mixture of more famous names and lesser-known acts?
Yeah, we do. I think something that people liked about the last record was that they found a lot of new music and a lot of new artists that they like, such as Sam [Smith], AlunaGeorge, and London Grammar. We want to do that again.
You did a repeat with Sam Smith. Was there any thought about redoing “Latch”, or about trying to do the opposite because it was so successful?
We always want to do something different. We liked it, we were proud of it. We weren’t trying to copy “Latch”, but we were happy to make this. Pretty much the only goal when we set out was that we wanted to do something different. There’s no point in trying to recreate it, because we made it.
How would you say your second album differs from Settle?
The main difference is the variety of different tempos and genres on the record. Settle was primarily house music, that was the main influence. With this album we’ve explored loads of different tempos and genres, all the way from R&B, which is more slowed down, all the way up to house. It goes from 60 BPM all the way to 130. We didn’t want to be constrained by  a tempo. We wanted to try lots of different ones, while still maintaining the Disclosure vibe and the sound. We wanted to change it up a bit. That wasn’t something we set out with from the start though, we just let the music come out. With the first three or four songs, we thought, “Ok, we seem to have slowed things down. Let’s continue on.” House is basically what we were left with.
Is there anyone you didn’t get a chance to write and record with, but you’d absolutely love to get them on one of your songs?
Literally, everyone we wanted to work with said yes. We have our heroes, who we’d love to work with, but at the same time it might be bad. Say we were working with someone like Prince. Just because he’s Prince and he’s awesome, doesn’t necessarily mean it would work. So, what if you meet him and it doesn’t work? Then you’ve kind of lost one of your heroes. You’re still going to love their music though. I think it’s good to always be cautious about working with your ultimate heroes. Everyone needs a hero.
I’d love to hear Prince on a house track.
I would too. Maybe in the future.
You guys helped usher in house, which is huge right now. What do you think is next in the EDM world?
I’m not sure. It’s the fastest music genre in the world, and it changes all the time. It’s always evolving. I don’t think anyone could predict that. If you told me five years ago that house was going to be all over the radio and that “Latch” was going to be a hit, nobody would have believed you. We didn’t think it would do that well because nothing else sounded like it. In America I think it’s still quite early days for house music. I think there’s still a lot of work to do. It feels like the UK about two years ago. We don’t play EDM, we play old house music, and people really like it. Hopefully house music stays around for a while. I’d be grateful.
Is that your goal, to spread house music around the world?
House is spreading itself around the world. We’re not spreading it, we’re just taking it home, with a few other people.

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