Friday, June 29, 2007

justice interview & dj set.


as announced in the previous post, last weekend we had the last pink pony party ever going down in frankfurt and what else can i say, both justice and top billin were absolutely killing it and the whole party crowd went home with broken bones and deaf ears.

i made this interview with justice rather late at night in a very noisy backstage room, right before justice started playing their set. because of all the noise the recording was rather horrible, so some of the answers are missing a line or two but i am sure all the main points are in there and i hope i've got it all right. don't forget to buy the justice album, out now on ed banger records.

discodust: when your simian remix and later on 'waters of nazareth' came out, it was a very unique and fresh sound. can you describe what lead to your sound, any influences or intentions that were driving you during the production? did you just try to make a real club banger?

justice: oh no, we did not try to make a club banger because we were not really into club music. with 'we are your friends' we just wanted to make a pop song and when we made 'waters of nazareth' we just tried to do something pretty different from a radio track, something extreme, that was our intention.

discodust: nearly every music-related blog in the world has written about or at least mentioned 'justice' recently and you will soon have 100.000 friends on myspace, so the internet obviously plays a huge role regarding your success. do you like this development and how are you personally using the web?

justice: yeah, we like that. we still don't know how the internet and real life are related. we don't know if having 100.000 friends makes you sell more records. and you were talking about the blogs that were putting our tracks up without permission, i think it's not a bad thing, you know we don't feel like having our tracks stolen because overall i think it is more important to spread music than selling a record.

i think one of the downsides of the internet is that when people get too many tracks too early they are getting bored. when we put our album out we only had 3 songs that were already released and all the rest was new but because of the internet our album leaked before, so people had songs like 'd.a.n.c.e.', 'phantom' and 'stress' weeks or months before and came to us saying 'yeah okay, the album is cool but why don't you make more songs? i already know like 9 out of 12'. so if you make the choice to download the tracks before from the blogs, don't ask us to make more tracks. if you choose to know everything before, you can not complain by the time of the final release.

and on the internet, it is also impossible to know the real feeling of the people, as a lot were hating justice because it was not like underground any more and things like that. and i think that's the main limitation of the internet.


discodust: in another interview, you were talking about a real bad experience during dj'ing when you played rage against the machine and lionel richie afterwards and people kinda forced you to go off stage. (of course this was at some techno festival in germany.) fortunately, you haven't changed your dj-style at all and still play a very diverse selection of today's hard electro, rock and roll, 80s dance, 70s soul/funk and disco to 60s girl group pop. do you think the crowd has changed ever since, like people became more open-minded? or do you keep getting bad reactions?

justice: that party was like three years ago and i don't know if people are more open-minded or if people can just accept more things when they get used to it. but we have also learned to recognize the place where we can play that kind of stuff and where we can not. and i am sure if we would go back to that festival again this year, which was kind of a minimal techno festival, this year it would just be the same.

discodust: after talking about bad parties so much - you have been touring a lot and probably been like almost everywhere in the world by now, what was a great night that you will remember for life and why?

justice: we did our first live show ever at coachella a few months ago and that was a really good moment and we will also always remember our first dj show in munich with dj hell.

discodust: over here in germany, the harder and yet more playful and diverse electro/rave sound is still quite underground and people are starting to pick up on it very slow - what about paris, is it the dominating sound over there these days?

justice: no way, not at all. i think it is not the dominating sound anywhere. i think in germany it is the same as in france, the dominating club music is like tech-house or commercial house and american house. but the whole distortion sound is just one process to make music and is not really a proper style of music yet, so it might not last very long and is bound to stay underground.

discodust: even though your sound clearly has its roots in disco and french touch/french house, you are probably the most important band in the whole 'new rave'/'maximal' sound movement. i keep reading that this sound was just some hype and it is about to fade away soon. odd enough, the people who are saying this, are those who have been stuck on the same minimal or indie sound for ages. what do you think, is it going to stay or what's going to happen next?

justice: we don't know, we will just have to wait and see. maybe we will be like old-fashioned in about six months and nobody knows us any more. but it is funny that some people seem to be excited about the fact that some bands will fade like really fast because we are always excited when there is new music coming up and we never hope for anyone to fade away. but the cycles and life times of music nowadays are really short, so we are just enjoying it for now and let's see what happens.

discodust: how long did it take you to finish the album? and did you end up having any leftover tracks?

justice: it took us one year to make the album, we finished it in march 2007 and we only have one track that we finished and that didn't make it on to the album. a lot of bands have like dozens of tracks and then select the best ones but we are too slow to work like this, so we just took our 3 tracks that were already finished and then decided on making one track like this, one like that, one like this, one like that and that we just made it like that. we knew if we wouldn't have sorted it all out before it would have taken like 8 years to finish the album because whenever we're making music, we don't know where we're going to and we just lose ourselves.

discodust: just like your dj sets, your album is very diverse: you've got harder songs aiming straight for the dancefloor, other tracks sound like 80s soundtracks hommages and then there is 'd.a.n.c.e.' which is a really light-hearted disco track, a perfect single. this puts you way ahead of all the electro kids that are just messing around with distortion and it seems like you are destined to produce other acts' albums and tracks, is this something you are interested in, in the near future?

justice: yes, this is something we definitely want to do. we are just waiting for the right offer, some people already asked us to make it but it weren't really good conditions.

discodust: in the beginning, mainly the remixes made the justice-sound famous. it seems you took a break from remixing, are you getting back into remixing now that the album is done?

justice: yeah, we have stopped remixing for one year and a half. and we just got back to it last week, remixing justin timberlake's new single 'love stoned'. and we are already working on the next remix, we'll do it for free.

thanks to xavier and gaspard for doing this unannounced interview, you guys are great.

finally, you can download the justice dj-set here on discodust. unfortunately it is a bit distorted but it is the best recording of that night you will be able to get and justice played quite a few tracks that i have never heard before, so get this right now:

justice at 'pink pony is dead' dj set
justice at 'pink pony is dead' dj set (on free.fr)

note: use the comments to get the tracklist together. read more!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

top billin.


top billin is finland's number one dj-team consisting of sir nenis, fiskars and flipperi. their mix-series constantly features tomorrow's cutting edge material as well as the most interesting tracks of today and long forgotten classics, covering all styles and genres of dance music. top billin are playing live this saturday at our favorite event series pink pony party at sinkkasten, frankfurt alongside justice, creathief and teasy.

discodust is glad to feature their latest mix, top billin volume 7 - 'hands in the air like what the fuck' as a world first right here:

top billin volume 7 (on zshare)

tracklisting goes like this:

01. mc miker "g" & deejay sven: whimsical touch
02. roisin murphy: overpowered (loose cannons remix)
03. newcleus: jam on it (claude vonstroke & galen disco kryptonite remix)
04. orange lemon: the texican (club mix)
05. run jeremy: window licker (x-rated lick)
06. the rapture: wayuh (scottie b remix)
07. dj pushups & sir nenis: u don kno meh
08. rod lee: feel me
09. glide: all right (all night mix)
10. adam kesher: modern times (goon & koyote remix)
11. say wut: yeah
12. doc scott: night nurse
13. dj technics: you deserve
14. cousin cole: chicken moose rhino monkey pt 1
15. alan braxe & kris menace: lumberjack
16. muscles: one inch bagde pin (bag raiders remix)
17. second phase: mentasm (original mix)
18. jimi bazzouka: troglodyts
19. josh wink: higher state (tweakin acid funk mix)
20. xvectors: your love
21. beastie boys: fight for your right to party!
22. da shop boys: party like a rockstar (cousin cole rock mix)
23. jay-z: dirt off ya shoulder / 99 problems (tom mariachi remix)
24. the knife: girls night out
25. jonny l: back to my roots (k-tee & dj friction remix)
26. die & clipz: no 1 (roni size vip)
27. collie buddz: come around (dj anonymous remix)
28. red astaire: no mo
29. sa-ra creative partners: my lady
30. the fix: what can i do
31. talib kweli & madlib: what can i do
32. zo! ft phonte & carlitta durand: take on me
33. let's go sailing: icicles read more!

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

electroluxe family.


french electronic label quatre records is about to release the new electroluxe family ep called 'rock that shit'. and it literally does, check out the dirty synths on the original along with a hard hitting remix by vicarious bliss, straight from the ed banger records camp. get the full tracks on here and buy the twelve-inch on june 25th.

electroluxe family - rock that shit

electroluxe family - rock that shit (vicarious bliss remix) read more!

Monday, June 18, 2007

young americans remixes.


less than four weeks ago, discodust featured a banging track by californian producers and djs young americans and now they are back with two remixes for shiny toy guns and scanners, proving that they can easily wrap up other bands' material in their own epic and energetic sound. more remixes and original tracks are in the works, i can't wait.

shiny toy guns - starts with one (young americans remix)

scanners - bombs (young americans terrible fuss edit)

(note that this is the final version of their 'bombs' remix, different to the one previously posted on the blogs.) read more!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

miami horror & midnight juggernauts.


still one of australia's hottest, the gameboy/gamegirl producing miami horror is back with a killer remix of the upcoming midnight juggernauts single 'road to recovery'. he took the best elements of the original song and combined them with his trademark retro sound while making it even more danceable for the clubs.

midnight juggernauts - road to recovery (miami horror remix)

miami horror has more remixes coming up for the sounds and soft tigers and i can not believe labels are not jumping on him yet. if i had songs i would definitely let him remix them because i knew it would be good. his original material has been featured on discodust before and recently even pitchfork wrote about him, a full album is in the works and yet the industry is once again sleeping. wake up already!

show miami horror some myspace love and watch out for the 'road to recovery' twelve-inch coming out soon on institubes. (edit: unfortunately, the miami horror remix is not on the twelve-inch.) read more!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

franz & shape remixed.


franz & shape from italy recently released their first album 'acceleration' on relish recordings, the steadily trendsetting label by headman from switzerland which covers a wide range of finer dance music and is also the musical home of acts like yuksek and david gilmour girls.

out now on relish is an ep with three brandnew remixes for franz & shape featuring energetic new-rave club bangers by labelmates riot in belgium from australia and kissy sell out from essex as well as a great moroderesque space disco affair by tronik youth (who is going to drop his first single soon). you can preview all of the remixes in full length here on discodust, get the vinyl in stores right now and buy it on beatport really soon.

franz & shape - the man who paid before (riot in belgium remix)

franz & shape - tightropes (kissy sell out's bethnal green dub)

franz & shape - the man who paid before (tronik youth remix)

the links might expire soon, so get the tracks right now! read more!

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

knightlife & cobra dukes.


just a few days after i first posted about knightlife on discodust back then, cutters records signed him right away. in fact that even saved me from being forced to start my own label, which might still happen some time in the future anyway. (hint: any business-related requests and assistance is welcome.) after playing dj-sets at two cut copy shows in melbourne, the first knightlife twelve-inch is even more anticipated now - the wait will most likely have an end late june or early july.

besides cutters, the rapidly rising london label prestel has also recognized the greatness of knightlife and made him remix the first single of up and coming nme darlings cobra dukes, also originally coming from melbourne, now residing in london. he turned 'leave the light on' from catchy new wave into flashy new rave, ready to ignite glowsticks on dancefloors worldwide:

cobra dukes - leave the light on (knightlife remix)
zshare backup link

cobra dukes - leave the light on (on myspace)

watch out for the official cobra dukes single release coming out at the beginning of july, made from glow in the dark vinyl and if you have missed it, also check out the first prestel release by blogs favorites dada life. read more!