The Forms Cover Disclosure/Sam Smith’s Hit Single “Latch”

The Forms recorded a cover of Disclosure & Sam Smith’s collaborative track “Latch” – as they say in the quote, “one of the weirdest and most complex songs ever to break through to the mainstream.”

For their version The Forms found a kind of alternate universe version of the song where it was composed by a scrappy indie band in the mid aughts, they’ve swapped out the sleek electronics of the original for physical instruments and in doing so actually drawn out the weirdness in the song.

“Latch” is definitely one of the weirdest and most complex songs ever to break through to the mainstream. The chords are so strange and unique, the slow triplet rhythms virtually unheard of for a dance track, and the lyrics are so subtly subversive that it is truly an astonishing achievement that it made the Top 10,” says Alex Tween.

“For our version, we spent hours upon hours watching live performances and listening to the song trying to reverse-engineer the music, and we still couldn’t figure it out (tho hopefully we got it about 95% right). Apart from Sam Smith’s voice and Disclosure’s harmonies, the original song was entirely composed of synthetic elements seemingly, so for our take we used all physical instruments (rhodes, hammond organ, piano, drums) and recorded it with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago. The core composition is so strong that the song would probably work in any format, but hopefully our un-electronic version will highlight what Disclosure and Sam Smith accomplished with their remarkable work.”