While a seemingly generic album title, there can perhaps be no better name than Energy for Disclosure’s third record, and their first full-length one to be released in five years. Energy, after all, is so easily transferred–given and received. Particularly to and from musicians, once upon a time so frequently amid crowds that couldn’t help but drain artists of their own. For this particular duo, comprised of British brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence, spending a solid three years from 2013 to 2016 touring (amounting to roughly 330 shows) while also being expected to put out their sophomore record, Caracal, to capitalize on the success of their debut, Settle, most assuredly drained them of their youthful energy. And so, it seemed a tacit decision for the two to “spend some time” without making an official to-do about it. For Guy, that meant a jaunt in Southeast Asia, while, for Howard, it meant staying in their hometown of Reigate to spend his days farming. Tranquility base hotel and casino, indeed.
With these years off to process what had happened to them and to re-experience a bit of existence as civilians, the recording for Energy began in 2018, with the goal of a 2020 release announced back then to ensure they would have a proper two years to complete the project. And it was apparently ample time for these two bros to rejuvenate their creative flow, evident from the moment the record opens with “Watch Your Step” featuring Kelis. Detailing the usual dance floor trance that Disclosure’s vocal collaborator’s like to discuss in the lyrics, Kelis remarks in awe, “You make me watch your step when you move/Now what you’re doing’s making me move with you.” There’s even a bit of unintentional corona foresight in it with regard to the need for isolation in the club with the lines, “I don’t look in the crowd/Baby, even when the lights come down I like to dance like I’m alone in the room.” That’s surely what one must be–alone–literally rather than figuratively these days if they want to bust a move.
The unintentional COVID-19 allusions continue with the second track featuring Channel Tres, called “Lavender.” As you might have heard, this ancient remedy also used during the bubonic plague has seen a spike in sales due to people’s health concerns and attempt at feeling in any way safe (and calm, for lavender is said to ease stress and anxiety) from the present plague overtaking the globe. But whoever Channel Tres is talking about doesn’t seem to be alleviating his tensity as he raps, “She be fuckin’ with my rhythm.” One supposes that’s the irony of naming a song after a supposedly soothing plant.
As for not “fucking” with things, it’s a theme that continues on “My High” featuring slowthai and Aminé (who released his own record, Limbo, earlier this month). An especially vivacious track for an album called Energy, the song offers a simple message in the vein of Kendrick Lamar’s classic, “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe.” In this case, don’t ruin the drug reverie with your negative attitude (once more, a reference to how significant other people’s energy is to one’s own). To that end, Aminé urges, “Bitch, don’t fuck up my high, my high, my high/Please don’t fuck up my high, my high, my high.” This leads into the more ambient groove of “Who Knew?” featuring Mick Jenkins. Echoing the sonic tone of a track that would be found on Settle, Jenkins marvels at how a girl could make him want to amend his ways with, “I could grow like the trees/I could show you I could change.” Of course, just because he says he can doesn’t mean she’ll stick around.
The chilled out vibe continues with “Douha (Mali Mali)” featuring Fatoumata Diawara, who appeared on Disclosure’s 2018 single, “Ultimatum” as well, in addition to recently appearing on the Gorillaz track, “Désolé.” Showing her Malian pride, the chorus of the song loosely translates to, “Mali Mali, we miss Mali so much/Mali Mali, Malians in Mali should send their blessings to those living abroad.” Which is definitely not an easy thing to do if we’re including some of the racist white folks in the U.S. in those blessings. Followed by a dreamy interlude called “Fractal,” the Lawrence brothers remind us they have plenty of talent on their own, without the bolstering of a major name in the music business. For they themselves are one. This eases into “Ce N’est Pas” featuring Blick Bassy, an entrancing number that could very well be putting us under a literal spell as Bassy croons in Haitian Creole, “Ata Nounou a bé a bi sébél lon/Mbaï/Ndjébaa, yon bi bissé a bi nèbè lè la/Sébél won bi binèbè lè bi sébél lon/Mbaï/Hana wè nou bi sé-nè ba nlébè lon nsan/Nsébla wéss won bi bi bénguè/Mbaï yéss la.Basso lè béss ni ri nèbè lè lon yéss, yossona.”
More understandable to the layman is the eponymous “ENERGY”–that’s right, in all caps. Because this is a message with major importance that everyone needs to take to heart now more than ever. Reteaming again with motivational speaker Eric Thomas as they did on Settle, snippets of a speech are put together against the signature rhythms of Disclosure to leave us with indelible advice, including, “A lot of you, you’re not where you wanna be/You thinkin’ of that negative stuff/You talkin’ negativity/You in that negative zone/I need you to do me a favor/I need you to know that in order for you to get on that next level/The one thing you need to do to go where you’ve never gone before/Is to change the way you think/Where your focus goes, your energy flows/Are you hearin’ me?” Again, it’s all about energy. Like Drake said, “Got a lot of people tryna drain me of this energy.” Your own self included. But, in these times when it’s so easy to let oneself sink into the NeverEnding Story-level Swamp of Sadness, it’s important not to, as much as possible, let that energy be siphoned.
Listening to the “Thinking ‘Bout You” interlude can help with that as it offers up its glittering, romantic beats to lull you into a state of serenity. Sampling from Copperpenny’s 1972 hit, “You’re Still the One” (it could very well be that fellow Canadian–also from Ontario like Copperpenny–Shania Twain ripped this title off for her own song of the same name), we hear the soft assurance, “Thinkin’ of you/Here by my side/Wanting just to touch your face and hands.” Ah, touch. How quaint.
Lending a new take on yet another song called “Birthday” (for everyone from The Beatles to Madonna has offered some iteration of this title in honor of this signature form of celebration), Disclosure featuring Kehlani and Syd paint the b-day narrative from the perspective of a conflicted ex who can’t decide if enough time has passed to let bygones be bygones and simply send a wish of goodwill on their former flame’s day of birth. So it is that we have Syd pondering, “Can I call you on your birthday?/Just to make sure that you’re okay/Would you prefer it if I’d go ghost?/And let you go your own way” in between Kehlani explaining intentions with, “I ain’t even callin’ for no reconciliation/I just want to tap in and see how you been/I’ve waited for an adequate amount of time to give us both some space.” So it is that Disclosure has provided us with the very first birthday track of its kind, one that delves deep into all the complexities and emotional hot potatoes of trying to commune with an ex in a “no bad blood” fashion. Maybe that’s why the accompanying video, directed by Kid. Studio ultimately ends with Syd and Kehlani’s claymation representations bursting into flames at the neck after each of them are featured in oversized scale within their respective domiciles (it has that Alice in Wonderland quality where she grows too big for the house). So yeah, perhaps wish that ex happy birthday at your own discretion.
Closing the standard edition of the album is Common who brings us into a “Reverie” with his melodious vocals. At just over two minutes, there’s a brief pause at the halfway mark that offers the faint sound of a waterfall, as though to iterate one should just “let it flow.” Or, as Common says, “Fly high, my wings propelling at me/To the heights of angels that dwell at me.” It is an urging to stay the course while staying true to oneself. A fitting message for the protests of the moment.
Taking a page from what Ellie Goulding did earlier this summer with Brightest Blue, Disclosure includes for those who get the deluxe album (and why wouldn’t they?) the Ecstasy EP that came out in February. Thus, the second disc begins with the pulsing beats of, what else, “Ecstasy.” For no matter how much time passes in the world of dance music, this drug/emotion can’t help but be made reference to. This is succeeded by “Tondo” featuring Eko Roosevelt of Cameroon. Indeed, the Afrocentric nature of the entire album would have, back in the 90s, been billed as being part of the “World Music” once sold at Cost Plus. Like “Ce N’est Pas,” it isn’t about literal understanding for most of the listeners who will hear it, so much as the “energy” delivered while experiencing the rhythm, infused with a jolt of 70s-inspired funk sampled from Roosevelt’s own 2015 track, “Tondoho Mba.”
As longtime proponents of “Expressing What Matters,” it’s only natural that Disclosure should now also have a song of the same name. Continuing the 70s sound, the duo wields and repurposes Boz Scaggs’ “Lowdown” lyrics, along with, of course the iconic beat of the single. Next is the empowering and emboldened “Etran,” named in honor of the Nigerian-originating band Disclosure collaborates with on the track: Etran Finatawa. A moniker that translates to “the stars of tradition.” Disclosure isn’t exactly a band that fits in with anything traditional, which is perhaps why they subversively incorporate the likes of those whose cultures are steeped in tradition into their music (sort of like Madonna did with fado and batuka on Madame X).
Drawing to an end, Disclosure urges us–antithetically to what we’re being told by the CDC–to “Get Close.” Sustaining the balance between high and low energy rhythms, a slowed down voice repeats, “I just want to get close.” Again, the ultimate taboo of 2020. And yet, Energy in and of itself is utterly defiant of everything this year has represented for most: stagnation, confinement, downtroddenness. It’s as though, like the Trump administration, Disclosure would rather gloss over all of that, preferring to exist in the timeframe during which the music was created: pre-pandemic.
A one-two punch of collaborations with Khalid in the form of “Know Your Worth” and “Talk” precedes the final two tracks on the second disc of Energy, remixes of “Birthday” (the Disclosure VIP Remix and the MJ Cole Remix, awash in the melodies of Brandy and Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine”). So it is that, in taking a long enough hiatus from the business of making music, Disclosure got their own energy back and, in turn, defibrillated 2020 with some of it.
While Dua Lipa’s also freshly unveiled dance-centric Club Future Nostalgia has done the same, it was more tailored to getting people to “trip the light fantastic” in their own homes. In contrast, something about Energy seems to make it exist outside of the corona vacuum–as though Disclosure believes the dance floors of the world could open up to their music any day now. Energy can’t help but make you almost believe that yourself.
