Unearthed: Disclosure- The Face EP

​Almost two years ago, Disclosure , aka Howard and Guy Lawrence, two brothers who were 16 and 18 years old at the time, uploaded what would become their first single onto MySpace on a whim. "Offline Dexterity" b/w "Streetlight Chronicle" was eventually signed to Moshi Moshi, but it was originally upped to the social networking site for fun. The two brothers never thought that their songs would actually get attention from record labels. When it did, they decided to keep making music together. Fast-forward two years, and the lads happen to be the brightest young stars to emerge from the dense UK Bass scene.

After their first release, it seemed like the brothers were still figuring out their sound. While their productions were excellent, there was something about them that suggested they were taking cues from other contemporaries in the scene, rather than honing their own vision. Songs such as "Carnival" and "I Love... That You Know" as well as the three others that were released as part of their Free EP last July are all great, but could easily be mistaken for the work of others.

It wasn't until the release of their next 12", "Tenderly" b/w "Flow", that saw the duo not only gain some serious buzz on SoundCloud, but garner some press outside of the UK bass scene as well. It was clear that Disclosure had found some sort of common ground between pop, UK garage, and house music, while at the same time forming a sound that is distinctly theirs. By taking a pop song, Jessie Ware's excellent "Running," and remixing it into something better than its original, Disclosure only solidified this idea. Now with The Face EP, which saw a release yesterday on Greco-Roman, there is little doubt that these boys are here to stay.

Let's discuss this EP in particular though. If there's one thing this UK duo knows, it's how to produce grade A hits with clean, silky production. What's most striking, however, is that the songs are not very diverse in terms of song construction and development. The feels of each vary, but you can predict filters, transitions, and (with the exception of the breakdown in "Lividup"... that shit is cray) how each song will generally develop. This uniformity in construction is hardly a bad thing. As listeners and admirers, we know exactly what we're getting. We cling to the dark and steamy club feel they've so beautifully perfected. We can't get enough. Despite its uniformity, they've innovated a sound that no one can even bother duplicating. They've borrowed great jazzy samples to give the tunes a light feel, they've added synth textures from which the typical club producer shies away, and they've evoked individuality through complex layering. The result? An ear-grabbing, 4-tune EP that will put Disclosure on the map for a very long time to come.