Disclosure - Energy

August 28, 2020 - Island Records

The Lawrence brothers are back from a brief but recuperating hiatus with Energy, their third full-length outing. Amidst several COVID-19 related delays, including Guy Lawrence contracting the virus, the pair steadily teased out singles in preparation for album number three. More a continuation than return to form, Guy and Howard have refreshed and refocused their taste for this latest sonic journey.

The album opens with ‘Watch Your Step’ featuring singer/songwriter/chef Kelis Rodgers. A straightforward drum kit lays down a beat that can’t be argued with, the instrumentation feels fresh while harking back to musical decades past. Kelis’s sung and spoken lyrics dance amongst the bleeps and blips of electronic production; it’s all here, though the piece serves more like a canapé than an entrée. ‘Lavender’ brings the heat up,as French-style sampled-electro riffs spicing up the palette for taste domineer Channel Tres to slip into the room. Tres speaks with soft confidence, contrasting the deep tubular bass and hard-edged percussion. A prism of voices is extracted from one, spreading goosebumps up and down the body like a sweaty, hi-energy ASMR video. 

Autonomous sensory meridian response goes out the window on ‘My High.’ Chaotic from the get go, the Lawrence brothers turn up the BPM and take a step back for the lovely sexy Aminé to spit fire in the laziest way possible. Not lazy in a bad way, definitely lazy in a good way, wisdom from the couch way, genius late nite shower idea way. Cheeky bassline chugs along a dirty hi-hat and ride combo. Everybody’s other favorite slowthai drops in from the ceiling to raise the organized disorder; he and Aminé make a good pair. Good contrast, good push, good pull. The video’s pretty slick too, all in all providing a pretty convincing feeling of being on just a few too many uppers but clinging to control. ‘Who Knew?’ is next, pulling from the headspace of Disclosure past, tracks like ‘Help Me Lose My Mind’ and ‘Magnets.’ Chicago-by-Huntsville artist Mick Jenkins joins the brothers for a dreamy, distorted, mostly sung jaunt through the ins and outs of the relationship labyrinth. It’s a cohesive piece, though there is some friction between the mood of the vocals and the energy of the instrumentation.

‘Douha (Mali Mali)’ opens our eyes to a new, oppressively sunny day. Malian singer/songwriter and former collaborator Fatoumata Diawara brings forth a hopeful Bambaran anthem, expressing love for her home country amidst rising political conflict. Only a few weeks after the single was released, Mali experienced it’s second coup d'état in less than 10 years, the aftermath of which is still unfolding as of this writing. The track is filled with joy despite this, despite the pandemic, despite everything. Diawara is a powerhouse of vocal uplifting. The interlude ‘Fractal (Interlude)’ interludes its way in next. It’s a sharp little piece raised on J Dilla and Nujabes beats but without a clear purpose or path forward. It fades away as quickly as it entered, a fadeout clearly fading to mask the unclear direction it was heading. 

‘Ce n'est pas’ picks up the atmosphere again. Cameroonian singer/songwriter Blick Bassy croons in a hybrid Basaa-French, words dripping forth like honey. Though a lift from ‘Fractal,’ this piece does see the overall energy of Energy wane ever so slightly, sleepytime tea has been brewed, sweatpants have been slipped on. As if sensing the dwindling focus, the Lawrence’s pull the old Jägerbomb trick, two parts conga, one part party whistle, a big kick and a whole lot of Eric Thomas—’ENERGY’ picks up where Settle’s ‘When a Fire Starts to Burn’ spiritually left off. The track embodies the ethos of the album, and rightly so. Hi-octane percussion drives an upbeat melodic line through which snippets of motivation from Thomas are placed. It is energy embodied, but the near constant level leaves the piece feeling a little low contrast and blown out, especially in its location on the project overall. (It does make more sense in the context of the deluxe album, however). 

Another interlude in ‘Thinking ‘Bout You (Interlude)’ and this time it really does feel like someone needed to get their Dilla fix in, though with some serious 2011 Teams vs. Star Slinger feelings. Anyway, ‘Birthday’ is next, offering a chance for musicians Kehlani Parrish and Sydney Bennett to explore reconnecting with an ex for reasons of reconciliation, of growth, of caring. Kehlani and Syd take center stage here, as stripped back instrumentation apart from a hi-hat with a mind of it’s own gives room for the lyrical sentiments to shine. Last to grace the airwaves is ‘Reverie’ featuring rapper/writer Common. It’s a relaxing journey through the world as it is now, as it has been, and as it will be, both through the lens of its nature and of its people. A bubbling spring and forest ambiance plays nicely with the skin-drum percussion as Common lays down two lightly-handled heavy-topic-ed verses. The second verse is less than half the length of the first, though, and the song quickly fades after, leaving an unfinished feeling to the project. 

As mentioned before, the back end of Energy feels out of balance with the rest of the project; tension levels drop off after ‘Fractal (Interlude),’ and despite the caffeine injection with ‘ENERGY,’ the levels just don’t reach the peaks of the past, leaving the ending of the a little deflated. This seems to be remedied by the deluxe version of the album, a practice that either the Lawrence brothers or someone on their team seem to love as all three of their studio albums have had extensive deluxe versions. I’ve never really gotten my head around this practice, but here we are. On to the deluxe version of things.

‘Ecstasy’ raises the energy yet again, though this time in a more of a pre-game for a new night than a last-minute injection of wakefulness. Calling back to the sampled bits of ‘Lavender,’ the brothers yet again bring French-house sentiments to their own tried and true cheeseboard, using samples from Aquarian Dream’s ‘Fantasy’ as chords and keeping the percussion light and playful. ‘Tondo’ enters next, channeling sunshine through a sample core of Cameroonian artist Eko Roosevelt’s ‘Tondoho Mba.’ The Lawrences dig deep into that vinyl crate digging time of night with ‘Expressing What Matters,’ taking blue-eyed soul artist Boz Scaggs’s ‘Lowdown’ and chopping it to bits for the dank dancefloors of modernity. ‘Etran’ continues the sampling trend of the deluxe offerings, building tension around Niger-based band Etran Finatawa. It’s a rhythm-heavy dream soup with some satisfying contrast between over and under saturation of instrumentation and layered synth noise. Next, (really last because this has just been Disclosure’s Ecstasy EP) is ‘Get Close,’ the true spiritual successor to ‘When a Fire Starts to Burn,’ at least in terms of the tube bassline present here. A presumably pitch-lowered Eric Thomas motivational line appears alongside a fun little Snoop Dogg vocal snippet. 

Next up are the Khalid tracks, with ‘Know Your Worth’ and 2019’s ‘Talk.’ Both take a little bit of a departure from the more overtly Lawrence-heavy production of the rest of the album, which makes sense as I would consider them both to be Khalid tracks before Disclosure tracks. They find a comfortable home here on the deluxe Energy album, rolling bouncy bass and powerful lines of self-empowerment from a talented singer. 

At the end of the line comes two remixes of ‘Birthday,’ one from the Lawrence brothers and a final touch by legend MJ Cole. The Disclosure VIP picks up the mood a bit from the original, offering a slightly increased BPM and cheerier chords to lead to a more positive rekindling connections story. Matthew James Firth Coleman charts his course through the track in typical UK garage style, with what sounds like a nice, fat Juno-60 laying down a nostalgia-inducing arpeggio line throughout. Honestly, these two alternate looks offer a more satisfying close to the project than where the standard edition drops off. All in all this is a well-rounded project that has some of Disclosure’s best work to date. It does, perhaps unfortunately (though it's not like it’s exclusive in any way), need the context that the deluxe version of the album provides to really feel satisfying in the end. “ Is that lavender?/I like lavender” indeed. 🍍

Listen to ENERGY (Deluxe) on Spotify. Disclosure · Album · 2020 · 20 songs.