99 Souls (GB)

When everyone from Beyoncé to Pete Tong loves your record, you know you’ve pretty much stumbled upon music’s Holy Grail: the credible club crossover cut. This elusive accolade escapes most careers but the mysterious 99 Souls – arguably the hottest newcomers to the house world – have struck gold with their very first release. The duo catapulted onto the scene at the end of 2014 and took their 100% self-promoted debut “The Girl Is Mine” to number 1 on the BBC Radio 1 Dance Chart and number 1 on Shazam in towns and cities across the UK. This unprecedented breakthrough led to 40 labels courting the UK duo. Still independent, the secretive UK upstarts licensed their single “The Girl Is Mine” to Sony and are currently in the studio steadfastly working on new material. In between gigging and working on their follow up they’ve found time to churn out two of the best received remixes of the year, Blonde’s “All Cried Out” and Sir OJ’s “Slowly”. With their first three records simultaneously racking up airplay from Annie Mac, Pete Tong and Danny Howard as well as some of the biggest DJ/producers on the planet including Afrojack, Martin Solveig and Laidback Luke, there seems to be no telling what will happen next. With heavy live commitments in 2015 including Creamfields, Lovebox, Bestival, Reading and Leeds and a string of key Ibiza dates, it’s easy to wonder how they’ll find the time to complete an entire project. However the ambitious pair has set their sight on creating a classic album which touches on topics seldom explored in club music. Citing Bob Marley, Bob Dylan and Kanye West as some of their biggest song-writing inspirations – “we both love acoustic music – and we want to connect with people” – 99 Souls plan to combine live instrumentation and unforgettable guest vocalists with introspective lyrics and social commentary.