White Noise
by Disclosure (featuring AlunaGeorge)

Album: Settle (2013)
Charted: 2
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Songfacts®:

  • Disclosure's follow-up to their breakthrough single "Latch" features vocals from Aluna Francis who is one half of AlunaGeorge. The soul-influenced electronica duo first linked up with Disclosure when they supported them at their show at Brixton's Plan B in late 2012. Their mutual admiration for each other's music resulted in them collaborating on this song.
  • Francis told Digital Spy: "They asked me to do a vocal, which I was happy to do. I'm not really the person to go around doing features a lot - I have thought very carefully about whether I'm going to enjoy the time in the studio with them. Having met Disclosure, they're really fun and so it was a no-brainer."
  • Guy Lawrence explained the song's creation to Billboard magazine: "We had the session booked with Aluna and the day came around and we had just come off tour for a month or two," he said. "We had absolutely nothing to show her. I had one little bass riff and she was like 'I like that.'"
    Guy's Disclosure partner Howard Laurence and Aluna were asked to come up with a theme and lyrics, while Guy made the beat. By the end of the day, they had completed the track.
  • According to NME, Aluna Francis' lyrics were written about an argument that she'd had with a man called Pink Boy.
  • In January 2015 songwriter Katie Farrah Sopher sued Disclosure for £200,000 claiming that this track, along with "Latch" and "You & Me" used some of her lyrics. Sopher alleged that the lines were taken from her personal songbook, which was stolen by her ex-boyfriend Sean Sawyers and sold on to music industry contacts. Disclosure denied the allegations.
  • Aluna Francis was anxious about the collaboration, but the Disclosure pair put her at ease. "I was very scared when Guy picked me up in a car in South London, but he said, 'Don't worry, we've got a singer, we've got tracks, it'll be fine,'" she recalled during a Reddit AMA.

    "Howard brought the sandwiches and we sat in their loft studio and got straight to work. It was unusually quick and really good fun."

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