Re-E-Wind

(Picture by tonto-kidd)

While I think Murcof still holds the record for the longest I've gone without mentioning/posting/reviewing a cd (to date - I still hope to have a root through my promo box at some stage, just like I mean to go through my emails and my MySpace requests), Justice may well creep up there. I'm not sure what the CD I have here is, is it a new album, a best-of, some sort of promotional toy? I don't know, and I'm not really interested - it looks to me like its some sort of summary, so this is good.

Justice (soft j, long i, justeeeece) are French, as all electro acts are these days. The duo (Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay) are really more known for remixing than original pieces, having produced curious and quite groovy remixes of Death From Above 1979, Franz Ferdinand, Mr Oizo, Mystery Jets, and probably most famously, Simian. It's the Simian track that's been the one stuck in my head today, although I didn't realise the auteurs until later on. I had assumed it was Hot Chip, or one of these achingly trendy electro-pop-rock groups that are so hot right now, but: I was wrong. It's Justice vs. Simian with Never Be Alone, or as it's entitled in it's re-release, We Are Your Friends.

It's a fun, bouncy thing, very Gallic in a number of ways: if you're familiar with Daft Punk et al, you'll know what I'm talking about; if not think nice crunchy synths and eminently poppy, dancey beats. Not to mention, that insanely catchy tag line courtesy of Simian (another group about which I know next to nothing, but are a very credible name to drop).

Simian - Never Be Alone
Justice vs. Simian - Never Be Alone
Justice vs. Simian - Never Be Alone (Lee Cabreras Lower East Side mix)
Justice vs. Simian - Never Be Alone (DJ Hell's Bavarian Gigolo mix)

The originals on this cd are also not without merit: Waters Of Nazareth is crunchier still, whereas Let There Be Light is nice and beat-driven. This is club music, I guess, in which I am still a relative novice: if I go to a club, I go to an indie disco where I'll hear some Stones (Rolling/Roses), and if I listen to electronic music, it's the sort that if you danced to it, you might get approached by paramedics looking for the epileptic. This is more straightahead dance music, of which I am sadly unfamiliar with subgenres, but I can tell you that, in theory, one could certainly dance to it.
I've picked One Minute To Midnight as it most corresponds with my tastes, I guess, it's a bit more atmospheric than the others, a bit more sonically varied as well.

Justice - One Minute To Midnight

Remixes are Justice's day job, I imagine. This, for me, is where Justice excel, picking perhaps unlikely tracks and putting them through the Justice grinder to produce something that's very much aligned along the lines of the French electro stylings of the band's originals, but retains the purpose and intention of the track being remixed. Justice started off doing French acts like Vicarious Bliss and this one from Scenario Rock: listen out for the comedy French computer accents and shouting ("who is the DJ today? give me something to dance to, and please not techno").
I actually have to retract the statement about staying true to the original track now, as the Justice remix of Franz Ferdinand's The Fallen sounds absolutely nothing like Franz Ferdinand - it's not hip hop; it's electro, but that sounds awfully close to rapping...

Scenario Rock - Skitzo Dancer (Justice remix)
Franz Ferdinand - The Fallen (Justice remix)

<$>Justice/Simian/Scenario Rock/Franz Ferdinand<$>

Tags: Justice; France; electro; remix; Simian; Never Be Alone; We Are Your Friends; One Minute To Midnight; Scenario Rock; Franz Ferdinand