Justice

Justice is a Grammy-nominated French electronic music duo consisting of Gaspard Augé (born 21 May 1979 in Besançon) and Xavier de Rosnay (born 22 July 1982). They are the most successful group on Ed Banger Records, and are managed by the label’s head, Pedro Winter. Their debut album † was released in June 2007 to critical acclaim. The album was later nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Electronic/Dance Album” and came in at number 15 on Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2007 and number 18 on Blender’s “25 Best Albums of 2007” list. It was nominated for the 2007 Shortlist Prize, losing out to The Reminder by Feist. Justice is known for incorporating a strong rock influence into their music and image.

Justice won the award for Best Video at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2006, for Justice vs. Simian – “We Are Your Friends”. Augé and de Rosnay were not present at the ceremony, and the award was accepted by label art director “So Me” and video director Jérémie Rozan. So Me was famously interrupted mid-speech by rapper Kanye West, who went onto the stage arguing that he should have won the award instead.

Their debut album, titled †, was released on Ed Banger Records on 11 June 2007. The album was released in the United States on Downtown/Ed Banger. The album was preceded by the D.A.N.C.E. EP, released on 28 May 2007, which featured the tracks “Phantom” and their own remix of “D.A.N.C.E.” titled “B.E.A.T”. “D.A.N.C.E.” was nominated for "Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. On the first of November Justice received the “Video Star” award at the European Music Awards in Munich and also picked up the best French act of the year. Justice was chosen to do a mix for the Fabriclive series in 2008, but Fabric rejected it. Xavier de Rosnay said that, “[t]hey weren’t ready for something like this.” Now titled “Justice Xmas Mix,” the mix is available on the web.

Justice appeared as a Live PA at the 2007 Coachella festival, the Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata, Japan, the Hultsfred Festival in Hultsfred, Sweden, the Oxegen festival in Kildare, Ireland, the Vieilles Charrues Festival in Carhaix, France, the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark, Pukkelpop in Belgium, at the “I LOVE TECHNO” festival in Ghent – Belgium. Dour Festival in Belgium and the Lowlands festival in The Netherlands, also at Tennents Vital in the Radio One TentBelfast and at the Phoenix Park Marquee in Dublin. Justice’s performance at Coachella in 2007 was their first ever live music performance per se. The band’s performances before Coachella had seen them DJ using either turntables or CD mixers. Justice was nominated for Best Dance Recording (for D.A.N.C.E.) and Best Electronic/Dance Album (for †) at the 50th Grammy Awards.

The video clip for “Stress” was boycotted by several TV-stations, so the band dumped the video on YouTube where it was seen by 14,000 people within 24 hours after having been posted on 1 May 2008. The music video features a group of youths committing acts of vandalism and wearing jackets bearing the Justice cross on the back.

Their style has been thought of as having some heavy metal influence and combines cut up bass lines with a compressed and distorted synth sound. Their music often includes bass slapping which results in an electro house style. Additionally, Justice uses samples of other songs to add to the effect, as with their song “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy”, featuring Uffie.