It would be surprising to most that (electro-house masterminds) Justice haven’t released an album in three years. Why? Because they are fresh off their first Grammy win.
A brief lesson in music history would tell you that Justice stumbled onto the music scene in late 2003 with a tongue-in-cheek concept album, mocking the annual (and often anemic) Eurovision song-writing contest.
Soon after the release of “Hit’s Up to You” (aforementioned album) the band was picked up by the Ed Banger record label for their college radio hit “We Are Your Friends,” a bass slapping take on the classic indie pop tune “Never Be Alone.”
Their innate remixing ability was finally realized—and soon—they were turning out fresh takes on everyone from Britney Spears to Franz Ferdinand. Their popularity was growing; the release of their “debut” album “Cross” coincided with an explosion of the term “electro-house music” on Google Trends (it had not even registered on the site before 2007).
It would be an argued assumption that “Cross” single-handedly brought the genre back from its nineties grave, but the influence it had on popular culture was turning ears (so to say); their foray into DJ-Hero and various other popular videogames solidified what would become moderate success in the tough to impress United States.
The 2009 Christian Dior Summer fashion show had some pretty eclectic music selections, provided by none other than the speaker-throbbing geniuses themselves. They were made up of four parts that fit together as one cohesive (yet glitchy) piece.
Planisphere (Parts I-IV) will take up a considerable amount of your time. This is time that will not be spent doing anything productive, because you will be too busy dancing around in the relative safety of your locked room. My one sentence review of the piece of a whole is…if robots made children, I imagine this is the type of music they would listen to mid-conceiving.
My personal favorite is Part I. Changing between bass-bass, bass-snare four-to-the-floor patterns, this song knows how to let the synths take care of the rhythm. Mysterious church organs undulate in and out of the soundscape evoking equal parts Muse and the Prodigy. Brilliant Juxtaposition. If I were to avoid one track from the Christian Dior mix, it would be Part IV—a weak change of pace in an otherwise chaotically concise recording.
The two most recent remixes, (a seasick, sample-heavy take on U2’s “Get on Your Boots,” and a Prince-esque homage to Lenny Kravitz’s “Let Love Rule”) differ from their Grammy winning remix of MGMT’s “Electric Feel” in that they are more true to the original song. Whether this is an act of tastefulness or laziness I’m not sure, but nevertheless they have a bit to be desired for.
If you haven’t discarded this article to go listen to Justice yet, then I haven’t done my job very well. Imagine the last twenty seconds of “Dirty Pop” mixed with Flea on the bass and a never ending barrage of bouncing (albeit typical) drum patterns. There is so much more than that. I could spill off this page, but it’s better if you listen to them for yourself.
