Disclosure - Latch (ft. Sam Smith)

The switch from sampled snippets of vocal to organic, runaway melodies in Disclosure’s songs has been a marked, distinctly fresh change. In a way, you could say it’s symbolic, representing the two brothers grabbing their music by the reins, and being firmer about the direction they’re heading in. All the contextual evidence definitely points this way, as the pair have recently signed to PMR, announced their first headline show for the 6th December, and will spend the remainder of the year touring the US and UK. Things are definitely happening for these producers, and happening fast.

In ‘Latch’, featuring the vocals of Sam Smith, the beat-makers are at the poppiest and catchiest they’ve ever been, allowing moments of croon-along goodness to bounce around in the bubbling, frothing noise that is their ridiculously fun production. It marks a decided, comfortable step towards something huge, and it shows a degree of artistic control and freedom that spells extremely exciting things.

Guy and Howard recently took some time out of this whirlwind to chat to Dummy about their influences and their plans, and gave the impression of being right on the brink of something quite huge.

Hi, Disclosure! Congratulations on signing to PMR! There have been lots of exciting announcements from you recently, including your first headline show – it must be an exciting time.

Yeah very much so. Its been a crazy summer for us…the whole year actually! Really excited to be working with the PMR guys. Their output of music is incredible at the moment. Can’t wait for the headline show – it’ll be our first one, planning on playing a lot of new material and bringing a few guests out.. We’re also working on expanding the live set at the moment, so that should be in full effect by then.

What are you most looking forward to about working with the label?

Looking forward to putting an album out with them next year. Also, all the acts associated with them in one way or another we both love, so meeting them/potentially working with them will be great.

How do you think your sound has evolved in the past year?

It is definitely being influenced by more house and deep house music than it was before. A couple of years back we were very much influenced by things that were being made right now and things happening in the underground scene at the time. People like Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound, James Blake ect. Now though, we pretty much just listen to 90s house music, garage and all the hip hop we used to listen to in our early teens.

Do you think you’ll continue down the route of using live vocalists rather than samples? How different is the process for you?

Bit of both still we think. We still enjoy sampling vocals if the tune needs it… but yeah we are working with a lot of vocalists at the moment and singing ourselves.

What’s your favourite thing around in music at the moment?

There are some labels putting out incredible house music at the moment. ‘Wolf, We Play House Records, Feel My Bicep, My Love Is Underground’ to name a few.

Is there anyone you’d really like to work with in the near future?

J Dilla would have been be an absolute dream for us… unfortunately thats pretty unlikely now.

What are your plans for the coming months?

Going to be writing and recording our album, expanding our live set, doing a U.S. tour around Halloween, supporting SBTRKT and Hot Chip on their UK tours, joining Annie Mac on her UK All The Way Tour, obviously got the headline show on 6th December at Plan B in Brixton, where we’ll be playing a lot of the album for the first time.. Also, going to be hitting New Zealand and Australia over New Years..

Stream ‘Latch’ below.