The Justice LP and Ed Banger Records

Chris

fractured oscillations
Just picked up some of this stuff yesterday out of curiosity. I dunno... The stuff does has kind of an ummm... sexiness about it I guess?... not in any subtle way of course. The excessive trebleness of it did kind of put me off though.
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
"we are your friends" is fairly ubiquitous in these parts, and i must say that i find it hard to resist when out at a bar

but much easier to resist at the record shop

i don't own anything by justice, but i have "pop the glock"/"ready to uff" by uffie on ed banger, which i think is a wonderful record, if something of a one-off or novelty track
 

Ach!

Turd on the Run
'Genesis' is da boom ting! I just discombobulated my neck and shoulder boddypoppin' to that sh!t!
 

tox

Factory Girl
I'm not really a big fan of the Daft Punk comparisons. Superficially the fact that they are French and have that Retro-Future kind of aesthetic makes them comparable, but beyond that I see few similarities. I find many Daft Punk records fairly structureless, which is quite a contrast to the rock structure of these Ed Banger bits. Also, Daft Punk rely heavily on samples. Not a problem in itself, but vicious repetition of samples in tracks likes Robot Rock and Harder Better Faster Stronger seems to render them a somewhat lacking in direction or progression. This is not a criticism you could level at many Digitalism or Justice tunes.

I dunno, I totally lost respect for Daft Punk after the tour fiasco of last summer. Plus I see Daft Punk as very handbag while Justice etc seem more sleazy/dirty. To me they owe more sonically to Mr Oizo than they do to Daft Punk.

I guess I'm overstating the differences here just for arguments sake, but I've never been a fan of Daft Punk. Henceforth its interesting to try and define why I am more than happy to dance about to SMD, Justice, Feadz etc but not to Daft Punk.
 

tox

Factory Girl
To me they owe more sonically to Mr Oizo than they do to Daft Punk.

Okay I take some of that back. They owe as much to Oizo as to Daft Punk.

Re-listening to Superheros and Aerodynamic I realize perhaps my perspective of Daft Punk is slightly skewed by the much overplayed CBBC type tunes that litter their LPs.
 

Tim F

Well-known member
I like them when they go for a queasy, quasi-industrial slo-mo sound - like Krazy Baldhead's "Strings of Death" or the better SebastiAn tracks.

Overall the label is quite hit and miss. Both Ed Banger comps are solid 6/10s I'd say.

Much better than most current Kitsune though! In its favour Ed Banger stuff doesn't strike me as sounding particularly "indie".

I'd almost go so far as to reverse simon's structure/sonics split (which holds true in some ways for Kitsune) and say that Ed Banger are mostly about using rock sounds in dance structures. Except that a lot of the tracks do have that post-"Rocker" hooky instrumental chorus thing going on.
 

swears

preppy-kei
...Except that a lot of the tracks do have that post-"Rocker" hooky instrumental chorus thing going on.

Yeah, and that low-bitrate "rock" as played on a commodore64 sound, although I think Rocker was superior as dancelfloor fodder than anything I've heard on Banger.
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
Re the harder louder ethos....its like any genre. People like SebastiAn do it just right, being dissonant without going overboard, but then there's a whole host of third rate producers who just stick some sawtooth synths on a track and think "voila!" Nights get boring pretty fast that play all that kind of shite.
 

3underscore

Well-known member
As much as I have grown to like Justice, they are one of the worst for production that makes their music impossible to listen to at length. Everything is whacked up so high, it gives me headaches quite a bit of the time.

Don't know about Justice being big DP fans (though it seems highly likely), they speak a lot about coming from being into heavy metal (which also makes sense given their audio assault style).
 

swears

preppy-kei
As much as I have grown to like Justice, they are one of the worst for production that makes their music impossible to listen to at length. Everything is whacked up so high, it gives me headaches quite a bit of the time.

Yeah, but this is one of the fun things about them in an age of very serious, chin-stroking, meticulously produced minimal/deep dance music. (A lot of which I do like.) It does make Justice and their kind seem a bit more novel, at the moment at least.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I kind of wish the production went a bit further, I was somewhat disappointed by level of industrialised distorted mid-range, it could be much more nasty, also probably more edits and stuff would be good... something like "Phantom" say is OK, but it stills sounds a little tame... would be awesome if it sounded more like the crunchy Mr Oizo stuff or the more banging end of Jackson's stuff... also the drums on a lot of Ed Banger stuff are dull- people go on about them having "stadium rock" drums but that is pure bullshit, sure they appear to be attempting something like that, but they lack the sonic mass necessary to achieve something properly headbanging, whilst at the same time are deficient in more traditionally house-like syncopation.
 

Tim F

Well-known member
Yeah the "extreme" ethos over it kinda annoys because it's always impliedly "more extreme than normal dance music."

But electroclash/electro-house did all this stuff the first time round - even the hardest Ed Banger/Kitsune doesn't top Vitalic, or Ewan Pearson remixing Freeform Five, or Black Strobe's most full-on moments (e.g. "The Abwehr Tango", their remix of Rammstein) - it's just... messier is all.
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
any thoughts on digitalism? (who i think are very closely related to Justice, in sound, approach, and dancefloor history- zdarlight was rocking clubs just as waters of nazareth was).

found the digitalism LP a bit disappointing really. when they sing it's a big turn off.
 

mms

sometimes
Hell's Suicide Commando 12" is on my turntable at the moment. Fantastic stuff.

Actually, on closer inspection it's on Disko B, not Gigolo. But the point stands.

thats a cover version suicide commando. der plan i think.

the ed banger lot are massive with the indie kids, its ok some of it, the oizo stuff is the best though, still, the justice stuff partly leaves me cold, that strings of death track is good but it's a total nick off an old 808 state track slowed down, and the original is bettr.

it's encouraging that they can't produce.
 

tox

Factory Girl
any thoughts on digitalism? (who i think are very closely related to Justice, in sound, approach, and dancefloor history- zdarlight was rocking clubs just as waters of nazareth was).

found the digitalism LP a bit disappointing really. when they sing it's a big turn off.

I think I said up thread that I prefer their LP to the Justice one. The more indie sounding tracks with vocals work pretty well in the LP context I think.

There seem to be a fair few UK representatives emerging as well. I'm thinking mainly of Kissy Sell Out, Filthy Dukes and Switch. There are some good tunes about but quality control seems very low.
 
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