...according to our Brett on Wed 01 Sep, 2010.
I reckon this is probably about the dubsteppiest thing I've heard on Moshi Moshi TO DATE but I'll let you know if anything changes. Apparently Disclosure are two brothers (of just 19 and 16, the precocious little tykes) and they take obvious cues from Burial, whose ghostly vocal processing style is all over this single, as well as Kode9's more recent 'dayglo synth' direction, the droning blare of which also could be seen as being quite reminiscent of Joy Orbison. Comparisons aside, 'Offline Dexterity' is a good solid single and they do mix things up just about enough to be able to rightly say that they've got their own take on things. Time is most certainly on their side.. Perhaps great things will follow?
> So tell us about yourselves? All we know is you’re two young talented brothers. How did Disclosure come about?
Well we are 19 and 16. We have both written songs individually and together all of our lives but we only decided to start making the kind of songs we make today around 2009 when we began to hear music from people like Burial who brought an element of soundscape to the 2 step sound. The two tracks coming out on Moshi soon are the first tracks
we decided to actually put a name on and were made in our living room on a Macbook. That’s all we had back then!
> Your family have a musical background, tell us about music in the Lawrence household.
Both of our parents have played in and are still in functional bands. Our dad was in a fairly successful rock band once.
They were briefly signed to CBS and toured for sometime. They are the reasons why we started playing music from as young as 4 years old. (Guy) ‘I Started playing the drums before I can remember and I picked up guitar from about the age of 10. Howard began playing bass also at 10 and we both try and play piano!’
> Where do you draw your influences from?
We were brought up listening to a huge variety of music. Our dad used to play us endless prog-rock like Genesis and Pink Floyd. I think this may have been the catalyst for our interest in creating interesting textures and soundscapes in our music now. We both listened to a lot of 90’s hip-hop. Jedi Mind Tricks, Gang Starr and Nujabes to name a few greats.
It’s great to be living around the south suburbs of London where all this exciting new music like dubstep is being produced. It’s nice to feel like our music has a home here.
We both study/studied music at school and college so we both take pleasure in good song writing, lush chords and beautiful melody, such as in jazz. People like John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Roy Ayers being the main influences. We are both still really excited about the music coming form new bands today such as Wild Beasts, Everything Everything and Foals.
> I hear hints of Burial and Joy Orbison in your music, where do you think you fit in the UK music scene?
I think we would both agree that Burial was our entry point into the whole 2-step scene, which led us to dubstep and so on. We like to think that our music could be a way of bringing elements of jazzy ambient harmony and melody into the 2step/dubstep scene, where the sub bass becomes more obsolete and the chords and samples take more of a lead role.
> Do you plan to release an album at any point?
Absolutely. It seems mad to be thinking about it now, but everything up until now has happened so quickly! We can’t wait to see where the coming years take us.
> When writing the music, who handles what?
(Guy) ‘Howard has yet to do his music production course, which I finished last year so I do all the mixing at this point, based upon both of our ideas and input. I build of drums and percussion, being a drummer… Howard’s input is more one of melody, cutting up samples and arguing with me about what is good and shit. His ability to build chords and melodies really annoys me for his age!’
> Will you be doing any live shows anytime soon?
We are locked in the studio at the moment working on originals and a few remix’s, so taking a break from the live show at the moment, but keep an eye out as after the release we want to be playing loads!
A Offline Dexterity
B Street Light Chronicle
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