Bridging the gap between rock ’n’ roll, fashion, art and banging electro, they changed the face of dance music forever. Back with a raft of stars, including the unstoppable Justice, Ed Banger Records is set to rule the world once again.
This is a big deal. Mixmag is in Justice’s Paris basement studio listening to their work-in-progress new album, due to be released towards the end of the year. Your correspondent is only the fourth person outside the band and Ed Banger label manager Pedro Winter to hear this music. The air fizzes with tension and anticipation.
An enormous painting of Tutankhamun peers impassively down from the wall as I sit in a brown swivel chair amid analogue and digital kit. Justice are here too, looking nervous, avoiding my eyes. It can be terribly embarrassing when bands play you their new music. What if it’s terrible? Where do you look? What do you say? I stare intently at something called a Vocet Discrete Class A Studio Controller.
The reason it’s so important is that Justice were game-changers. They helped revitalise dance music when it was in its post-millennial doldrums, formed a vital portal to indie/rock and welcomed a new generation to the party. Their first album, ‘†’, combined distorted electro bangers with pop suss and a shed-
load of attitude. Their new one, it turns out, is more than its equal; complex yet funkier and more playful.
The 10 tracks Mixmag hears, with titles like ‘Horsepower’, ‘Ohio’, ‘New Lance’ and ‘Audio Video Disco’, don’t have so much of ‘†’s raw bangin’, yet maintain a powerful, club-centric vision that’s still very Justice. They’ve assimilated a strong flavour of 70s rock in a way that’s thoroughly entertaining. Singers such as Ali Love, Vincent Vendetta of Midnight Juggernauts and Morgan Phalen of cult hard rock act Diamond Nights, as well as Justice themselves, front songs where the spirits of Queen and Iron Maiden collide dramatically with gigantic electro-bassline funk. Mad prog rock lyrics, baroque flourishes and even an apparent flute solo seamlessly gel with polished electro-punk, monster synth riffs replacing guitars. It’s original, poppy, accessible, brave and fun. It’s also hugely exciting.
In the eerie silence that follows the last track, I burble enthusiastically, “It’s The Who for ravers!” Gaspard Augé – the heavily moustachioed half of Justice – smiles faintly. “The two albums we had in mind when we were making this,” he says, “were ‘Who’s Next’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Houses Of The Holy’.”
This is a surprising statement coming from the reigning kings of Gallic clubland cool (given that Daft Punk are making film soundtracks in LA). It’s time for dinner. There’s much to talk about.
Source: http://www.mixmag.net/words/features/ed-banger
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