After disco house died and Daft Punk stopped wearing robot suits, France’s contemporary dance music needed new life. Justice, the duo of Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé, has been mesmerizing crowds and leaving sweaty clubbers with tired feet for the past three years. Its dirty electro merges Air’s whispery ambience with messy tempos and hints of psychedelic house. And the duo’s long-ass DJ sets in French hipster enclaves like Le Paris-Paris are stuff of nerdy legend.
But France’s new wave of dance music has more to thank than Justice. The group’s label, Ed Banger Records, was started by Daft Punk’s manager, Pedro Winter, three years ago to put out first releases from France’s newest DJs. Justice’s second release with the label—a 12” remix of British band Simian’s ubiquitous single “We Are Your Friends” in 2004—made Angé and de Rosney critical darlings and popular in Europe’s picky club scene. Taking its name from Metallica’s debut album, …And Justice For All, the duo have remixed everyone from Britney Spears (“Me Against the Music”) to Franz Ferdinand (“The Fallen”). Like labelmates Sebastian, Busy P and Feadz, Justice makes post-urban beats. The original tracks use hip-hop as source material but are playfully blended with Paris’ disco days. On Justoce’s EP, Waters of Nazareth, there’s headbanging electro (“Waters of Nazareth”) but also sleepier synth-filled gems (“Carpates”), making for more than just a Saturday night record.
Unfortunately, snobs and aesthetes may be disappointed to know Angé and de Rosney are leaving the filthy French heavy metal beats behind on their completed, untitled debut album. “We did four or five songs with a heavy, distorted sound, and now we can’t listen to that anymore,” de Rosnay told The Fader magazine earlier this summer. “Everything we did for the album is really light and definitely music for girls and music for driving cars,” he admitted. New York will be their last stop on their mini American tour, which makes their first trip across the pond. And they’ll try to show you why they’re France’s DJ saviors: Dancefloors will be waiting.
Nov. 4. Studio B, 259 Banker St. (betw. Calyer & Meserole Sts.), B’klyn, 718-389-1880; 10, $10/$12.
