Disclosure: DJ-Kicks

Album review

One year after their third album, Energy, released in 2020 and packed with guest appearances (Common, Kelis or Fatoumata Diawara), the Disclosure brothers are back under the banner of DJ-Kicks, a cult electronic music compilation series. An album like DJ-Kicks is usually an opportunity for artists to describe their musical vision in a more nuanced way, without feeling the need to showboat. But for Howard and Guy Lawrence, their vision is a club. And so, after an introductory ambient track (Pépe - Recollection), we go straight to the dance floor with a superb disco house track by Harry Wolfman, LOTF, with that bass that sounds like it's humming through velvet and that keyboard that will immediately put house fans at ease. "Most of the mix is presenting what you can do with house" Guy explains in the accompanying notes. “And that's basically our career: trying to move house forward, whether it's with songwriting or using different genres or different languages. The mix should represent where we’re at now, and where we’re at now is clubby."

Disclosure offers a dozen tracks around 120 BPM, including Don't Say a Word by &on&on, a very smooth and cerebral track with spoken vocals, or Harmony in the Distance by M-High, a much more direct track, which makes the link between US house and UK garage, a connection which the siblings have been playing with for ten years now. Disclosure also pays tribute to the DJ-Kicks tradition by delivering two exclusive tracks, Deep Sea and its percussions and Observer Effect, with a curious synth intro with a dubstep feel that then changes tack and becomes no-frills house. Also note Fire from London afro-futurist collective Onipa, probably the best track on this compilation. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz