Any discussion of Disclosure, the English duo of Guy and Howard Lawrence, seems to be fraught with controversy. The pair released its first single while the brothers were precocious teenagers (Howard is still yet to reach 20), and has followed it with a catalog that combines a whole history of underground dance music with the hookiest contemporary pop. This irks a lot of people. Common critiques maintain that the brothers are either too young to fully appreciate their influences (though growing up near London surely helped to accelerate their maturity), are perverting them via streamlining, or both.

These are of course underground frustrations, ones based at least in part on the pop world’s lack of frustration. While partly valid, these claims ignore the history of past club music-to-pop crossovers—acid house’s “summer of love,” for one, saw experimental Chicago tracks reinterpreted in New Order’s chart-topping singles and massive British raves alike. Disclosure is merely another part of this lineage, and from an “underground” standpoint, it is better to maintain indifference. They are a pop act through and through, and there is really no solving the “problem” of Disclosure, other than to perhaps acknowledge that underneath the sheen, there are occasional flashes of eccentricity.

Settle, the duo’s debut album, confirms the project’s pop ambitions. In conversation, Guy is disarmingly lax about the pair’s process. In a way, he has the air of a super-producer, the sort who might appear on YouTube composing a ubiquitous, million-dollar single in a matter of minutes. “Ninety percent of the time it’ll be like, I’ll be producing a beat and getting an idea going, and then Howard will be with the singer coming up with a theme for the song and the lyrics, and just throwing ideas and melodies around,” he says. “With a song like ‘Latch,’ we actually had the whole song finished and written, but it had samples all over it. It had no lyrics or anything—it was all cut up, with vocals from an old house track. And then in the studio we cut all the samples off, and just put [Sam Smith] on it instead. That was the only song where we started with a vocalist that was already complete, if you know what I mean. [On] ‘White Noise,’ we had nothing at all. When AlunaGeorge came into the studio we were like, ‘we’ve been on tour for a month, we’ve got nothing for you, what do you want to do?’ A couple of days before I’d made a little bassline, or a little melody, and that was it. She was like, ‘I really like that,’ so I just put some drums under it and we went from there. It varies every time.”

Guy describes Disclosure’s “only brief” for the album as being “a nice mixture between pop-structured songs with vocals and instrumental club tracks,” and in fact the record does just this, pairing an array of collaborations with trackier, more purpose-built material. Still, there are some basic similarities—pitch-diving melodies, hollowed-out basslines, perky rhythms situated between tech-house and UK garage—that unite these sides. Whatever the brothers’ ambition, the album’s sameness is a testament to how closely pop, at least in the UK, is aligned with dance music. Settle hints at unconventional (for pop music, anyway) moves in a couple of places. “When A Fire Starts To Burn” is underlined by a barreling melody that is a bit Detroit techno, while “Second Chance” is of a piece with the spacious, choppy pop that has sprung up in Mount Kimbie’s wake.

Overall, though, the LP is marked by its collaborators. The result is less about Disclosure making a statement than a “producer” album, an effort featuring a hodgepodge of cuts that only sit together by virtue of their producers’ tendencies. There was “no set formula” to the eight collaborative cuts, but there was a hands-on aspect throughout the recording process. “We always make sure we’re with the singer every step of the way, whether they’re writing vocal lines or lyrics,” Guy says. “We never send dubs or things like that to people; we don’t really like working like that.” Settle is clearly a selection of tracks that have been honed by the brothers and singers alike, and as a result, the vocals are able to breathe, free of processing. “We’d already chopped up vocals two years ago,” Guy recalls. “I don’t think we need to prove to anyone anymore that we can do that. I still like all that stuff, but we always want to push ourselves and we just thought [that] for the album, writing songs with vocalists made more sense. I don’t think we ever had a conversation, we just kind of knew that we wanted to do it like that.”

Although Howard works on the lyrics (both in collaboration with the guest vocalists and on the songs he sings himself, like “F For You”) more than Guy, the older brother maintains that there is often little behind them. The brothers might attempt to shift pop paradigms by inserting dance-music reference points, but they further the age-old tradition that a hook can be about virtually anything. “The things that the songs are about are not always what they appear. With ‘F For You,’ for example, it sounds like [Howard] is being a fool, like it’s a love song. But it’s actually about him being infected with a cold,” Guy reveals. “A lot of the songs I don’t really know the meaning myself, to be honest. [Some] are love songs. A lot of the songs don’t have much meaning at all, like ‘January,’ featuring Jamie Woon. That’s just a song about stuff. ‘Twenty-second of January’ is the main lyric, and it’s like, nothing actually happens on the 22 of January. It’s not a special day for us at all—it just sounded good in the song.”

This might all be fuel for the anti-Disclosure fire, but Settle is at least commendable for its unabashed, upfront sensibility. As a collection of pop tracks, it surely succeeds. To judge it on a deeply artistic basis seems to miss the point, as this was never the brothers’ ambition—it is really more of a compilation than anything else. Although Guy insists that the two have no formula, it is clear that they have plenty of grasp on what it takes to make a radio-ready single, and this is truly the focus—it’s just done over and over again, with slightly different singers and arrangements. Guy mentions that he would love to eventually write a record with a thoughtful, narrative scope, and cites Kendrick Lamar’s recent good kid, m.A.A.d city LP as one of his favorites. But for now, he says, “it’s quite a tall order. I don’t think we’re quite good enough!”

The 2013 edition of Red Bull Music Academy may be over, but there are still plenty of resources out there for those looking to glean some knowledge about the music industry. Here at XLR8R, we’ve got Nick Hook. Our resident advice columnist and all-knowing street shaman is here year-round, popping in every Thursday morning to share his wisdom about music, gear, production, travel, DJing, touring, romance, and whatever else our readers need assistance with. The good doctor is just an email away, so hit him up at [email protected] and let the learning commence.

Hi. It’s sunny and nice in New York. I went to see Flatbush Zombies and The Underachievers on Tuesday night. Kids were high as hell, moshing, rushing the stage… it was amazing, true raw energy. That’s missing sometimes right now. If I had a million, I’d sign them and it would be on.

I had an amazing jam with Gaslamp Killer, Pick a Piper from Caribou’s band, and Little Shalimar at the Gaslamp show last Friday. xxxy was amazing at this party after. Now I’m being a good boy post-RBMA. I’m actually going to bed at a normal hour. xo to those guys.

I’m heading out to Sónar in Barcelona next week. I’m setting up a studio on Thursday and Friday with Ableton to mess with the Push. Hit the Doctor Nick email if you are out there and wanna come by. It’s gonna be fun.

xxxx

Hi Doctor Nick,
I’m a DJ/Producer planning to move out to California in a few months. The reason for the move is to advance my musical career, as it seems like a better place for musical opportunity and to be creative. The thing about where I’m at in the Midwest is that the electronic music scene is small, and you can only go so far. I’m working my buttocks off to achieve that ‘international status’ that I envision myself possibly immersed in one day—after I have enough money.

I’m going to head out to Cali and find a job, and try to keep up on the rent and keep working on music. As far as a musical career goes, besides working hard and believing in what I do, what else can I do to secure a career for myself? You seem to be pretty busy, and doing what you like to do. It’s a hard thing to explain, but I want this badly and I do have confidence in myself. Man, I wish I was better at explaining this shit… all I can think of is this being an article on the site… LOL… fuck.

I just don’t wanna be that guy man, when I’m 33, still “chasing” something. I’m a hard worker. I just want to solidify myself, you know? Any advice really at this point is appreciated. Big ups.
Jm

Okay. Let me preface this: I am from the Midwest too. I moved from St. Louis to NYC in 2004. I rolled up in a Honda Civic with a couple of ounces of weed, some unemployment checks, and some shitty gear. I left my girlfriend back there for a few months cuz the whole thing seemed so outrageous that I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to pack up and quit her whole life to facilitate me. I ended up going back two months later and got her, and here I am now living in New York. I actually still own a house in St. Louis that I’m trying to rent, if anyone needs a crib. I bought that shit for 2000 down cuz I never thought I would leave.

Also, I’m 34 and I feel like I’m chasing something. I’m glad I feel that way. It keeps me hungry and inspired. I hope to feel that way ’til I die.

Another thing—stop tripping about that status. “International status” doesn’t mean anything. It really doesn’t, trust me. I think that’s one of the problems of all this—people just want that “status” so bad. Just work hard. Keep working hard. Push yourself. Be prepared to be ready if those opportunities come, whether it be a songwriting session or a DJ gig. Cuz what if you get into that situation and you can’t succeed? Then you probably won’t be getting any status.

That said, I feel like I didn’t choose to move to New York. It almost chose me in a sense and I was ready to roll. I’m glad I did, and I think that you should be willing to sacrifice things when you see an opportunity arise. The more I travel and go back to my hometown, I’ve kinda started to realize that nothing really changes. I find that in the best way in NYC cuz I couldn’t love this place any more than I already do, and in the worst way in St. Louis, cuz I feel like everytime I go back, I enter into this time vortex and it’s like I never left. To me, that’s why it’s okay to take a chance and go somewhere; worst case, you’re just gonna roll back. Living in a bigger city has been amazing because I feel like in most places I’ve been, the maze just ends. In smaller scenes, people are a little more competitive—in a bad way—about letting people take gigs, opportunities, etc., because there are only so many to go around. In NYC, I’d say we are always happy for everyone to do their thing and try to help people do their thing. There is sooo much opportunity here in the city and when someone makes it, they start traveling, and eventually are able to put their friends on. I wouldn’t be here without certain people that took a chance on me and now I’m starting to get to do it a bit on my own and it feels pretty amazing.

Just get into the thick of things, but don’t rush. You see cats move into your city with this thirst to make it and sometimes the biggest mistake is the overhustle, where you are thinking, “Yo dude. Chill. We’ll trade numbers eventually, make tunes eventually.” Just let it all unfold. I think in a new city it takes a minimum of one year to really get started. Let that first year be groundwork of learning your city, how you fit in, what scene you like, who throws the parties. I moved to New York in 2004 and I really feel like it took until 2007 for me to meet the people that I wanted to meet, and then ’til 2009 to actually be creating with them and be a full part. The other thing is to offer help. I have a cat working for me now that was literally after me for a whole year. I was a little scared at first, but then eventually I had him through and slowly he’s been helping me in a bunch of ways, and hopefully I’m helping him back and giving him opportunities to “solidify” or whatever you wanna call it on his own.

I think the other thing to keep in mind is how people perceive you. In my case, people know they can holler at me and I’ll most likely be down to work. I’ve never been difficult with business because I’ve found that it kinda works itself out if you are working with the right people. Between you growing and progressing in your skills, and being down most of the time, it snowballs.

The thing I also learned mad early was to diversify. I never realized how much one opportunity could bring me to another. I never thought 100 million people would listen to some song by this girl named Azealia the day we recorded it. That brought me to Japan just to record and then I got to DJ, and now I’m going back to Korea in July cuz they liked me from that trip. The same thing led me to relationships with all of these gear companies and now they also let me come to places and play with their equipment. Sometimes, it’s even for money cuz they know we are using the gear in the studio and touring with it, so we can give real feedback. All of this came from the most unglamorous job of “engineer.” That job let me chill with my friend El-P for the last month and be involved with helping to make one of the best records that will come out this year (in my opinion) and get to record Big Boi, a hero of mine. Anyways, I’m rambling now, but yeah.

Good luck my G.

Hi, Doctor Nick! appears every Thursday on XLR8R. Do you have a question for Doctor Nick? Please submit your inquires to [email protected]. Nick Hook can help you.

Last week, XLR8R was invited to attend the annual MUTEK festival in Montreal. During our four days in attendance, we witnessed plenty of memorable moments—13 of which were spelled out in detail in our festival review—but our participation actually went beyond merely checking out the various shows and parties. XLR8R was also invited to host a couple of public conversations with MUTEK artists, one of whom was Martyn. We’ve excerpted a portion of the discussion here, specifically the part where the Dutch-born, DC-based producer (and 3024 label boss) told us about his new audio-visual show.

Let’s talk about the new show that you’re doing. It’s called The Air Between Your Words and it’s an audio-visual thing.

A thing. [laughs] Basically, when I started writing my new album… Usually, when I make music, I have sort of a visual idea. But once you finish the music, there’s not really a way to express your visual ideas. You just put the tune on a record and it becomes an audio file, basically. I was always interested in doing something much more visually, and I worked together with a guy called Erosie, who does all the artwork for the label and usually for all of my releases. We just sat down while I was gathering ideas for this new album [and thought about] how to make it much more of a visual experience. I was already doing live shows, but I wanted to make the live show a little bit bigger, a little bit better, and [to have] more of a message, as well.

The other reason why I started doing this was that while touring and seeing a lot of other people play live shows with an audio-visual component, I started noticing that a lot of those shows were much more about technical ideas, like flashing LEDs and stuff exploding or whatever. It was almost like a freak show sometimes, like, “Why do you have to have a visual show?” “Well, because. Because everyone has a visual show.” So basically, a lot of shows have a lot to do with a technical feat than a narrative or a story.

Obviously, I put the bar very high for myself to say that now I’m doing a show that has a clear narrative. I think the narrative also will form itself by doing lots of these shows.

When you were thinking about putting the show together, was there any artist you saw and thought, “I like that,” or anyone who you thought was doing a particularly good job? It’s been a tricky issue with electronic music for… forever.

Forever? I don’t know. It is definitely something in the last few years where the festivals are getting bigger. People make music, they do albums, and after a while, you have to think of a “next step,” and usually people go the audio-visual route or a live show or something with lights.

There are two shows that I really like, audio-visually speaking. There’s Flying Lotus’ show, basically because I’ve seen it so many times. I’ve done a lot of touring with him, so I know the ins and outs of the show and what goes on behind it. I think it doesn’t have that much of a narrative and it’s still sort of a technical story. It’s called Layer 3 and basically, he stands between two screens and they project from the back and from the front. So you create a sort of 3-D effect. He plays with it a little bit during the show, so there’s kind of a story to it. He uses a lot of live action from his videos and stuff like that. I really like that show.

The other one I like is Hype Williams, which is no show at all. Hype Williams plays live, it’s two people; basically, it’s just dark the entire show and then, all the way at the end, there are 15 minutes of stroboscope and that’s it. So it’s the most anti-visual show you can imagine. But the most powerful thing about it is that it’s analog and doesn’t rely on the technical—flying cubes and all that. That makes it powerful and much more of an experience than all those shows that have computer-animated graphics.

With a lot of audio-visual shows, there’s a video or graphics sequence, the artist has to follow along, and there’s an issue of losing the spontaneity of a DJ set or even an audio-only live set. Is that something you’ve had to think about? Is keeping room for spontaneity important?

Yeah. With the live shows that I’ve done so far—the ones that I do without visuals—I have a discography that I can tap into. A lot of my music is rich in sound [and] there’s a lot of stuff going on. There are always lots of layers of beats, melodies, bass, and extra added sounds. If you start freestyling with all those different elements, you can go lots of different ways. So I always try to keep it very spontaneous. Usually, you have some sort of starting point, maybe two or three tracks in the beginning that get you into the groove. Then you have a target where you want to end, so that you know that you have to complete the journey between those two points. And [you] always have a sort of finale, something that sort of builds up to an ending, whether it be something really loud or really subtle. In that way, you keep it quite spontaneous. The more you master your controls and the more you program your effects and things you like to use, it personalizes the music.

As far as the visuals, I’ve done the show with different people. There is a set amount of graphics that we use that are sort of tied to songs. But it’s also very much improv, because every VJ, just like every DJ, has a personal style. So one show might be completely different from another, but I hope there will be some sort of narrative that you can understand and has a beginning and an end, rather than a trick that has a loop of eight minutes and you see that seven times and then the show is over.

How many times have you done the new audio-visual show so far?

It’s funny, we’ve done it twice for an actual crowd. [MUTEK is going to be] the third one. But we did a big art festival in Holland and they gave us two weeks of prep time with the venue. They were like, “You can do the show every day,” just to test it or to make sure everything worked. So we did the show a lot of times, but for a crowd, it’s obviously a very different story. It’s still in its infancy, but it’s also exciting to try and not make mistakes.