BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCERS

Dance fans are a fickle bunch. There’s nothing more liable to herald accusations of ‘selling out’ than finding your records bothering the top 40. So when you’re as likely to hear a record being sung by heaving crowds on a Friday night in Oceana as you are in Fabric, you know you’ve got something pretty special on your hands.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when, in October, Disclosure’s ‘Latch’ found itself knocking on the door of the Top 10. With that spine-chilling Sam Smith vocal, wrapped in soaring synths and the gently skittering rhythms of their native Croydon, it was a record that summed up an incredible year for the new poster boys of the UK’s bass scene.

Much like the chart-bothering proponents of the genre’s early '00s heyday, brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence, who were still teenagers when their first single dropped, craft records that are more than just dancefloor fodder.

“We really focus on structuring our songs,” explains Guy when DJ Mag probes the secret behind their success.

“We wanted to make more pop-structured songs with verses and choruses. Not just build-up – drop – build-up – drop.”

It’s served the lads well. While 2011 saw them start to turn a few heads in the underground, over the last 12 months they’ve grabbed the UK music scene by the scruff of the neck, and aren’t letting go. Jam-packed touring schedules, including support slots for SBTRKT and Hot Chip, coupled with an almost supernatural ability for crafting thumping, vocal-led earworms mean that if 2012 was the year Disclosure broke through, 2013 is set to be the year they go supernova. With headline tours of Australia and Europe, and an album in the offing, Disclosure are going to be inescapable. “We can’t wait,” Howard enthuses. You know what? Neither can we.