Clearly the duo were aware of a lack of quality in the dance album stakes, but as Max explains they had experience on their side. "I think the difference between us is we've done it before, been working so many years in the music industry it was a natural thing for us to do, and after Back To Basics we had the window of opportunity. Other people, either they're not prepared or don't have the resources or are even just too scared!"

The duo have been making electronic music for some 15 years. Back then Simon was in an industry capacity. "I worked with Peppermint Jam, I was the label manager there. Before that I had a management company with Lola (his wife), and we looked after Max on that, running clubs and doing DJ tours.

"I've always been in dance music and it was around 1990 when I started doing remixes - the first one was Sylvester's Mighty Real. It was not until my relationship with Max where I started to pick up the things I needed to know. It wasn't until 2003 that I had the balls to put my name to something."

Which is where their big tune came in. "Basically we'd started to set up our own label Nocturnal Grooves and we needed a record to launch it with. I was at home listening to Lola one night and she played me an old record by Johnny Taylor called What About My Love. The first eight bars of that record was the string riff, and the next day me and Max took it and it felt good, so we gave it the working title of Lola's Theme. It was originally an instrumental, then we added the verse on afterwards."

And what of the follow-up? "Well I think a few people were surprised Back To Basics was quite as assured as it was, but the thing is we wanted to work doubly hard to make sure it was. We also had more money in the bank from Lola's Theme, and it was the vibe we were on at the time, wanting a big strings and brass section. If anything there was more pressure from ourselves to make it good than from anyone else! And then we turned a similar approach to Incredible - we wanted them to turn out that way, as after all we don't make jazz music!"

Lola's Theme, of course, was a Europe-wide smash, and Back To Basics didn't exactly do badly either, paving the way for the album. Simon takes up the plan. "We decided that if we were going to make an album we couldn't just do it all 4/4 or it would sound like a fucking compilation, and so we didn't have any remit when we sat down and started writing.

"We took 25 demos and picked the best twelve. It's what it is, how we were feeling at the time, what we came from. We come from a club background, so a few tracks on there are about the chemical generation, then there's things about our beliefs, things we're pissed off about in the world at the moment, like the opening track which is an anti-Bush statement."

The album track Sensitivity features Chic's Nile Rodgers who Max says "was amazing. We hooked up with him and he loves Lola's Theme and wanted to do something with us, and so he actually found an old demo that he recorded with Bernard, his band mate in Chic, it had been lying around for fifteen years or so and he just found it!

"There were no vocals, no nothing and he just e-mailed it over to us and we wrote a completely new song over it, then recorded strings and all the vocals and stuff and e-mailed it back to him. He jammed with his guitar over it, and so it was done pretty much completely over the internet!" We met up once when the track was finished and it was amazing to meet him, he's been involved in so many successful records."

It's easy to see why working with Rodgers was such a boon for the group and Simon in particular, for he grew up with "early Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Mamas and Papas, even Tears For Fears. Then I got more into techno and electro, started enjoying house music." Now the group sit squarely on the divide between commercial and underground dance music. Simon agrees. "Some people used to say it was a grey area, but because dance music suffered so much a few years back some people got a bit too snobby about everything like that."

Next stop for the Shapeshifters is the annual dance music conference in Miami. "We've got two gigs - a Positiva night and one with Frankie Knuckles. It's a great get-together and handy to have the album coming out at the same time, it gives us a little more exposure."

Knuckles is something of a hero to the pair. "Absolutely" says Max, "he's one of those people who's been around, one of the pioneers of house music. He called us up and said how much he loved Back To Basics, and we did a great night in Pacha together last summer. He's a very humble, lovely guy."

Since the two are keen to keep their DJing and band projects simultaneously on the go, the choice of acts they admire reflects this. "Obviously the Jaxx", says Simon, "the Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Faithless - all acts that have done it bigger and better than we have. As for DJs, well Frankie's still brilliant, then there's Roger Sanchez, Martin Solveig - he's a really talented guy. Full Intention we love as well."

And on plans for taking the show live, Simon is enthusiastic. "It's high on the list, and something that separates you from being a bog standard dance production duo. We've started rehearsing, but we want to spend a lot of time on it, get it really good, and it takes a lot of money too."

The only time he's stumped for an answer is when I ask who he'd have supporting them. "Support? I thought we'd be supporting other people to be honest! Probably a DJ I guess, our own boy Simon Hawes, a deep nocturnal set." It's refreshing, then, to know the Shapeshifters' success is still early enough to be continually taking them by surprise.

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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees