'It irritates me, the ignorance of some people when you mention disco," says Oliver Jones. Otherwise known as dubstep don Skream, he feels so passionate about the subject that he has agreed to be interviewed from a bar in Kuala Lumpur, where he is on tour. "They don't realise that, if it wasn't for that era, there would be no house, no hardcore, no jungle or drum'n'bass, and no UK garage or dubstep."

After several false starts and the occasional Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Kylie single, disco appears to be enjoying an Indian summer. Daft Punk are at No 1 in the album charts with Random Access Memories, thanks in no small part to the lead single Get Lucky – a showcase for the inimitable rhythmic guitar of Chic's Nile Rodgers. A slew of new outfits, from the arch Parisian producer Breakbot to the 17-piece troupe Escort, clearly draw from the genre. Their output is redolent either of the classic 1970s New York sound with its hi-hats and strings, or the slower, funkier 1980s style, heavier on the synths and drum machines, known today as "boogie". Others such as Norway's Lindstrøm are exploring a more cosmic, trancey variant. Meanwhile, the fact that the Australian duo Flight Facilities – French house fans who deliver a knowing take on disco – have signed to the Glassnote label, home of Mumford and Sons, is a sure sign of commercial faith in the music.

It doesn't stop there. Veronica "Ronika" Sampson, AKA the "Madonna of the Midlands", sampled an old Chic production on her recent single Automatic, earning a favourable tweet from Nile Rodgers. She has projects lined up with many of the new exponents of disco, including Goldroom, Grum and Mighty Mouse. Her DJ sets mix up classic disco and newer acts such as the KDMs, Midnight Magic, Classixx and Jupiter. According to Mixmag, last year's finest dancefloor hit was the disco-indebted Inspector Norse by Todd Terje. Many of these artists have been quietly making disco-influenced music for years (there has been a "nu disco" chart on Beatport since 2008), but there are now so many of them that the scene is reaching critical mass.

DIsco star Donna Summer in her 1970s heyday. Photograph: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

Thanks to Amy Winehouse, '60s soul was rehabilitated for a new generation. Is disco having its Winehouse moment, with Random Access Memories its Back to Black?"It's becoming more commercial, definitely," says Dec Lennon, who makes boogie tracks as Krystal Klear and has a disco-centric show on Rinse FM, the East London station formerly synonymous with dubstep and grime. "I can see it driving that uptempo disco sound to the forefront." Lennon is glad that disco is finally being vindicated. "I see people I went to school with who used to belittle my taste and say things like: 'That's music for faggots', turning up on FaceBook going, 'Oh, loving the disco vibes at the moment' and posting Shalamar videos."

Lennon insists disco is no fad – "I was making disco mixtapes on MiniDisc when I was 14-15," he says – and points to other shows on Rinse with a disco slant hosted by Bicep and LuckyMe, as well as artists associated with other genres moving in a disco direction such as the grime MC Skepta. Probably the most credible enthusiast, though, is Skream, a serious disco head who has just put a mix dedicated to the genre online and is issuing a disco single this summer called Rollercoaster. He played an early version to French disco-rockers Justice, who "lost their mind over it" he says with some pride. So, is this really the summer of disco? "If I have my way – yes, definitely," he says.

Skream, like Lennon, is annoyed that disco doesn't have the heavyweight reputation of its near-relation, funk. "People say, 'Oh, disco's gay,'" he says. "But I Feel Love by Donna Summer and Cerrone's Supernature set the template for the future of dance music."

The current fascination for all things disco has spilled over into clubs. As well as the celebrated Horse Meat Disco and Bloodbath, there are nights all over the country from Futureboogie in Bristol to Hoya Hoya in Manchester, where Lennon, Skream and others keep the disco/boogie flame burning.



Furthering the idea of a disco summer are two events in June. The Troxy in East London will be staging Saturday Night Fever with a replica of the 2001 Odyssey club and all the "disco balls, amazing cocktails, DJs and dancing" you could want. At the Forum Rodgers and Chic will be part of a lineup that includes DJs past and present, from Studio 54 legend Nicky Siano to Chicago house star Derrick Carter. Skream's idea that disco represents the first step in a continuum that leads to contemporary dance music is borne out by the promise of "a musical journey from 1970s New York City disco through to the sounds of summer 2013". Also this summer, the Inception Group is launching a venue called – funnily enough – Disco which, they say, "will see 70s Manhattan reborn in Soho".

Yet this goes beyond a nostalgia for syndrums and handclaps, afros and flares. If anything, an obsession with "realness" exists in disco circles that is as fierce as anything in rock: an insistence on remaining true to the original sound by the proponents of disco past and present. Many of the younger artists, steeped as they are in electronic music-making, are excited by Daft Punk's use of real musicians and Rodgers, who pioneered non-electronic disco, could certainly see the delight in the robo-popsters' eyes during recording.

"Get Lucky wasn't a love letter or even an homage to Chic specifically," says Rodgers. "It was a recognition of how those records made you feel. They [Thomas Bangalter and Guy de Homem-Christo] wanted to be part of that process. I've been interacting with other musicians all my life. But for them it was the first time."

Jake Shears – who as the Scissor Sisters' frontman has helped keep disco alive this past decade – acknowledges the near-shock value of all this live performing in the dance realm: "It sounds incredible, like a giant fresh glass of water that so many people have been thirsty for for so long," he says.

Dubstep producer Skream is a serious disco fan. Photograph: Gary Wolstenholme/Redferns

Skream, too, is loving the effect but is keenly aware of the effort required to achieve it. "Disco is not easy to make or replicate unless you sample it," he says, comparing the disco process – with its multiple layered voices and instruments, horns and strings – to purely programmed electronic dance music. "You can imitate EDM, but learning how to write a song and play it isn't that easy. That's what I love about disco – you can hear people playing their hearts out. A lot of them were skint musicians who would play their best so they'd get invited back again. It sounds like a cliche, but it was their way out of the ghetto."

Hugo Gruzman of Flight Facilities – their name, like Chic's, an evocation of the glamorous life – an see a raising of the bar: "Disco requires more musical thought so it's going to make people up their game," he says. "It's going to be interesting to see who can kick it with the big guys."

However Eugene Cho, leader of Escort, does concede that EDM, in a strange way, may have paved the way for the growing appreciation of disco we are witnessing today.

"EDM has made more people open to dance music in general," he says. "But the flipside is a reaction to EDM, which is very hard to listen and dance to over an extended period because it's so intense. Whereas with disco you can dance to it all night long. It's the difference between a quick shag and an all-night lovemaking session!"

Skream believes that dance music has been crying out for some of disco's pizzazz for some time. "There is a massive lack of flamboyance in dance music now," says the producer, who has done much to popularise the growling basslines of dubstep. "It's very loud and abrasive, hetero and masculine. It's grooveless, very straight – literally and in terms of the rhythm."

Lennon concurs. He is seeing clubbers with their hands in the air again: "In the dubstep era everyone just stood there and nodded their heads. Now people are opening up, getting loose, having a drink and dance. And there's no better format for it."

This shift coincides, says Lennon, with a change in drugs that reflects a need among impoverished clubbers to forget their hardships and dance the night away, much as their forebears did in the recession-ravaged 1970s.

"A lot of teens in the early noughties were taking ketamine, which was a very placid, down drug that kept you in your own zone. But recently I've noticed people turning to more high-energy 'up' drugs. Ecstasy has made quite a significant comeback. People want a guaranteed good time, and they know they'll get it with disco."

As a former Black Panther whose bittersweet symphonies with Chic exuded bourgeois sophistication, Rodgers knows all about music whose shiny surfaces conceal darker truths about society. Chic's hits, including Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) and Good Times, provided a hedonistic antidote to the grim realities of the time. Rodgers wonders whether dance music is once again tapping into a collective desire for escapism.

"One could easily draw that parallel," he says. "And even if it's not a scientific fact it would lend itself to a very powerful hypothesis. I've always said: when society feels at its worst, artists are at their best."

Disco, he says, has always been about "looking forward to an age of prosperity, not living in the doldrums of the current moment. Great artists don't linger in the present. They yearn to be in a place that you're not."

Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards of Chic in 1979. Photograph: Waring Abbott/Getty Images

But how would Rodgers – the "Mozart of disco", as one website called him – define it? He responds with an unexpected allusion.

"It's like pornography," he decides. "There was a famous [sex] trial in America where the judge said, 'I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it.' Well, I can't define disco, but I know it when I hear it.'"

According to Rodgers, what enraptures listeners – and you can hear it, he says, on the Daft Punk album – is disco's "complex simplicity".

"At the risk of sounding corny, it's about the absolute bliss of the grooves," he says. "All you can do is react."

Disco's return mirrors its original trajectory from margins to mainstream. But whereas last time around the genre's ubiquity opened it up to ridicule and evental rejection after the Disco Demolition Night – a 1979 event held at Comiskey park baseball ground in Chicago where sports fans were invited to bring their old disco records to be destroyed – this time it seems here to stay. After so long being derided, is this disco's revenge?

"I'm not a negative person so I hate to look at it like that," says Rodgers, although he is rightly gratified by his and Daft Punk's present success, some three decades after he was effectively snubbed by the entire music industry.

Shears, who has just recorded a duet with Cher that he compares to an updated version of No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, also balks at the phrase but applauds the sentiment.

"I don't think disco has revenge in its soul," he says. "But what I do like about this Daft Punk record is that it has brought so many people together. It has captured the imagination of the entire public, and that's a disco thing. Now, no matter how many records they burn, it's never, ever, ever going away."

• Escort's album is reissued in June. Expect disco releases later this year from Krystal Klear, Jake Shears, Skream, Ronika and Flight Facilities. Nile Rodgers presents Chic takes place at London's Forum on 14 June.