justice
I can't hope but feel a little disappointed with this... Firstly the Adidas tie-in just feels a bit lame - an advert for a sports brand is hardly the most exciting way to announce your return - and more importantly it just sounds so very like the first album.
Hopefully hearing the full track (and the rest of the album) will prove us wrong...
BP x
This is freaking awesome. BlackPlastic loves the sackboys in Little Big Planet (there is a sentence we wouldn't have predicted a few years ago) and Danteneverdies has put together a video montage / parody of a series of well known dance music videos using Little Big Planet.
The take on the Prodigy complete with graphiti in the form of a LBP sticker is BlackPlastic's personal favourite.
Tracklist:
Flatbeat - Mr Oizo
Sing it Back - Moloko
Satisfaction - Benny Bennasi
Destination Calabria - Alex Gaudino
Right Here Right Now - FatboySlim
Who’s Your Daddy - Benny Bennassi
Starlight - Supermen Lovers
DANCE - Justice
My Boobs are Ok - Lene Alexandre
Hey Boy Hey Girl - The Chemical Brothers
Call on me - Eric Prydz
Invaders Must Die - The Prodigy
One More Time - DAFT PUNK
Source: Danteneverdies / Via: Rubbishcorp & @misstwinkle.
BP x
Around the time that Justice unleashed their début album Cross MSTRKRFT were also releasing their début The Looks. One artist went on to becoming a bit of a cross-over phenomenon whilst the other played it much cooler. At the end of the day however The Looks still got plenty of attention from the bloggers and, now that the Justice backlash has officially begun (check Krissi Murison's review of Peter, Bjorn & John over at the Guardian), MSTRKRFT's first album still gets praise heaped on it.
Fist of God is another crack at mainstream success and MSTRKRFT are going all out - check the guest spots from rappers N.O.R.E. and Ghostface Killah - and, seemingly as a result many have been turned off, giving this album a hard time.
It's understandable insofar as Fist of God is very different - it's a much louder album, drawing on the rock band leanings of Justice and Jesse F Keeler's former heavy metal project Death From Above 1979. The use of vocals is also a departure - the first album may have had a few vocal snippets but it was far from lead by them, Fist of God on the other hand has more vocal tracks than instrumentals and they are very hip-hop and R'n'B influenced.
The result does admittedly have a pop music feel but there are still some nice moments - the old skool rave transition into 'Breakaway' from 'Word Up' and the rough intro of opener 'It Ain't Love'. What really stumps BlackPlastic though is the people that hold The Looks up as a masterpiece only to shit on this.
Both MSTRKRFT albums are enjoyable but neither could honestly be considered great (certainly not on a par with either Justice's début nor DFA 1979's sole album). The Looks lacked polish and ideas whilst Fist of God has both in spades in places but then lacks variety (and 'Word Up' featuring Ghostface Killah is quite quite horrible).
So Fist of God is worth checking out, yes. As good as The Looks? Probably. Brilliant? Sadly not.
BP x
Available on Amazon.co.uk on CD
Part of the Weekend was an insightful peek into a band that became part of a scene with no name, their influences, their peers and those they have themselves inspired, not to mention life on the road when on a (very) long tour. A Cross the Universe is exclusively a look at the last of these elements and whereas the Soulwax package featured live recordings here there are no full length tracks, just snippets. There is no real insight beyond an anecdotal look at just how weird it is to be a pair of young musicians thrust into fame in a foreign land and at times BlackPlastic was genuinely unsure whether the content on screen was genuine or scripted.
This last fact is probably particularly telling. Real or not, A Cross the Universe is a commentary not on THIS band, but a commentary on being in bands in general and the bizarre and twisted life it leads to. If nothing else, this DVD goes someway to explaining how you end up like Ozzy Osbourne.
So is it any good? BlackPlastic genuinely has no idea.
The CD is a little easier to comment on. You may or may not be aware of the recent controversy surrounding a photo that appeared to show Justice 'playing live' despite that fact their equipment was not plugged in. In good nature the band joked about performing 'unplugged' and argued that the error was noticed when the particular piece of equipment failed to work and there are indeed later shots from the evening that show the equipment with power. This in itself is evidence of the barmyness of being on tour - the fact that such a thing could go unnoticed for long enough that photographic evidence survives.
It also raises a question over whether the recording here is anything more than a studio tweaked version of Cross played to an audience. But it is important to remember that this doesn't actually matter. Firstly because the act of listening to a recorded 'live' event in your home is stupid anyway and secondly because live electronic music is often about little more than spectacle. With none of the vocalists present, what Justice are delivering is the shared experience of enjoying their music with like-minded individuals and, to be honest, putting Cross on shuffle in a big room would work almost as well.
So the tracks are suitably adjusted and there are a couple of re-edits for the die hard fans but the main point off this recording is the audible excitement of the crowd as they cheer and join in. The audio quality is questionable and in BlackPlastic's opinion it isn't as consistent a set as the Soulwax one on Part of the Weekend but there is still enough here to keep you going until the follow up to Cross.
BP x
