The music landscape of the early 2010s was defined by hyper-online people using wacky genre descriptors to pigeonhole scenes that may or may not have actually needed to be classified. Chillwave, vaporwave, and PBR&B all come to mind as legitimate cultural fads, as well as seapunk, which seemed to describe a musical genre that didn’t actually exist. So it’s surprising that, when Daft Punk’s Pharrell-featuring 2013 summer smash “Get Lucky” suddenly made mainstream dance music “cool” again, bloggers and Tumblr influencers didn’t try to make it A Thing. It was simply time to admit that club music from the masked French duo and similar producers like SBTRKT and Jamie xx had the capacity to slap — even when it was stripped of DFA Records’ leather-jacket sleaze.
At the forefront of this shameless dance-pop surge were Disclosure, a UK duo made up of brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence. The pair grew up in the quiet town of Surrey. Their parents were both professional musicians, so the siblings were pushed to learn instruments while still elementary school age. Howard and Guy attended the same college. It was around this time that they heard Burial’s influential masterpiece Untrue and became interested in the dubstep boom happening in nearby London. Howard and Guy started collaborating on tracks together in a no-frills spare room above their father’s office, and the sounds that came out of those early sessions were electric. Revisiting formative Disclosure cuts like “Street Light Chronicle” and “Tenderly” is a trip through the most listenable side of 2010s deep house, garage, and UKG.
It’s easy to trace echoes of artists like Floating Points, Joy Orbison, and Actress on those tracks. But Disclosure also proudly leaned into straightforward arrangements that allowed them to be far more marketable than their comparably oblique forebears. “A lot of people get into producing dance music through DJing. But we had our first two singles out before we even knew how to DJ, so it’s been just a weird order of events for us, because we grew up listening to songs and bands,” Guy told NPR in a 2013 interview.
One early Disclosure single is particularly accessible: “Latch.” The lead single from their full-length debut Settle – released 10 years ago today – found Disclosure teaming up with burgeoning superstar Sam Smith for what would cement its place as one of the most recognizable dance tracks of all time. Atop stuttering drum machine sequencing, floaty pads, and a wubby bassline, Smith’s vocals morph from suave to spunky. By the time they sing, “Now I’ve got you in my space/ I won’t let go of you/ Got you shackled in my embrace/ I’m latching on to you,” in the first chorus, it’s nearly impossible to be anything but captivated. While the song’s sonic palette is similar to the one employed on the tracks that came before it, it hinted at a group that was about to fully lean into its clear knack for commercial production.
“Latch” is without a doubt the most ubiquitous track from Settle, and a similarly polished sheen dominates the entire record from front to back. But the album is all over the map stylistically. Opener “When A Fire Starts To Burn” was obviously written with CDJ rinsing top of mind, driven by a four-on-the-floor techno beat that supports a choppy titular sample. Conversely, London Grammar-featuring “Help Me Lose My Mind” is a slice of floaty R&B, carried by a subdued groove and burbling low end—certainly forward-thinking, but not exactly begging to be dropped in the thick of a Boiler Room session. The wobbly “January” feels indebted to sumptuous Chicago house, while murky, glitched-out “Second Chance” marries downtempo and trap.
It might not be the most iconic single from the record, but the hardest-hitting track on Settle is “White Noise.” AlunaGeorge’s youthful yet feisty vocals ride atop a pristine drum machine beat and a bassline that shifts between creamy and downright fat. When Settle came out, I was a high schooler playing in noise-rock bands, sort of ashamed to find myself gravitating towards dance music. But that cut conjured fantasies of mystical club nights to come, a cold drink nestled in one hand while surrounded by strangers shuffling in the soft, colorful light of a crowded dance floor. All these years later, it’s embarrassing to remember jumping around in my bedroom to that song. But back in the ambling teenage summer of 2013, few things felt more liberating.
Upon release, Settle was met with near-universal acclaim. “The Surrey duo have not only made 2013’s best dance record so far — they’ve also concocted one of the most assured, confident debuts from any genre in recent memory,” wrote Larry Fitzmaurice in a glowing Pitchfork review that anointed Disclosure with both a Best New Music designation and a near-perfect 9.1 score. The record also garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic album and saw three singles dominate radio charts back home. Rolling Stone would even go on to place Settle at #93 on its list of the 100 best debut albums of all time.
Howard and Guy were 18 and 21 years old, respectively, when Settle came out. Where some – if not most – youthful artists in their lucky position would have gone overboard living rockstar lifestyles, Disclosure seemed to take a shockingly innocent route. When asked about his wildest experience as a touring musician in a 2013 Pitchfork interview, Howard recounted the “creepy” tale of an anonymous admirer slipping him a note on stage with her number and a request to meet up after the show. While I’ve never been a lauded, globetrotting producer, I have to imagine that this type of experience is not all that abnormal for any famous person who regularly performs in public — a far-from-extreme craziest story coming from one of the biggest DJs in the world at that time. This is not to suggest that every DJ has to engage in salacious behavior or endless sleazy hookups to be seen as “cool,” just that the Lawrence brothers were living an atypical, maybe even sheltered existence for people in their chosen profession.
In the wake of Settle, it felt like there were two paths forward for Disclosure: They could become the biggest name in the club circuit, or they could lean into their radio-friendly side with the caveat of compromised artistic integrity. It takes little more than a glance at the cover of Settle‘s 2015 followup, Caracal — which legitimately looks like an NFT — to figure out which road Disclosure went down. While the monetary stability has surely held strong, the milquetoast work Howard and Guy have gone on to put out with people like Jordan Rakei, Khalid and Kehlani is, frankly, not material one would hear at a very tasteful club; songs like those are better suited for a supermarket aisle or the dentist’s office. Looking back at Settle a decade later, it feels like critics may have been a little too eager to proclaim Disclosure dance music’s next great thing. And the decision to brand themselves as the type of ravers you would actively want to introduce to your mom doesn’t do much to help their case in my eyes. Eschewing any level of edge ultimately distanced Disclosure from the allure of the 2010s dubstep boom that initially sparked the project.
These days, it feels like the Lawrence brothers are less-and-less willing to favor inventive energy over the guarantee of a hefty paycheck. But latter-day standouts like “Moonlight” and “Observer Effect” prove that the Disclosure boys do remember how to fire up the synths and get the walls banging when they want to. And when listened to without a somewhat lackluster legacy in mind, the majority of Settle still goes extremely hard. Closing my eyes with the record bumping in my headphones makes me want to be in the field of some sun-drenched festival sipping a beer, inhaling skunk-y fumes from countless strangers’ burning weed, and losing myself in the taut groove of a song like “Voices.” (I don’t really like going to festivals or, for that matter, drinking during the day, but Disclosure at their best can make that experience seem idyllic.) For better or worse, Settle is an album that captures all the glamor of the Coachella lifestyle, minus the less cinematic reality of the sweaty, hungover trek home.
