Event for the 20th anniversary of Lucky Boy, 30/10/26

It's genuinely hard to pick a favourite Justice song because they have had such a huge impact on me, but 'Helix' is certainly right up there.

I wasn't properly introduced to electronic music until a little later in life, and Justice were one of the first artists who really opened that world up for me. I was instantly addicted ! They also inspired me to start learning how to DJ and eventually study audio engineering, so their music has influenced my life in a fairly tangible way.

What fascinates me about them is how intricate and densely layered their songs can be, while still retaining so much groove and style. 'Helix', from Audio, Video, Disco, is a perfect example.

That album marked a noticeable shift away from some of the harsher electro of † and towards a more rock influenced sound. Justice have talked about playing the instruments themselves, often starting with fairly simple piano and guitar ideas before recording everything bit by bit, then breaking those performances apart and reprogramming them. It sounds like an incredibly painstaking way of working, but you can hear that obsessive construction in the finished music.

The rhythmic pull on 'Helix' is brilliant. Their signature heavily compressed drums, that massive syncopated riff and the chopped vocal sample all lock together to feel simultaneously funky, mechanical and completely over the top.

I quite like the guitars. There is an obvious love of '70s and '80s rock throughout this era of Justice, but they never simply sound like a rock band. The guitars are treated almost like electronic components, sliced into the arrangement alongside synths, samples and percussion until they all become part of the same machine.

The studio version uses samples from Billy Ocean's 'Loverboy', Van Halen's 'Mean Street' and AC/DC's 'Two's Up', which explains some of that strange collision between funk, hard rock and electro.

And then, because apparently the track wasn't already funky enough, the live version later incorporated Prince and The Revolution's 'Kiss'. That version appears on Access All Arenas; hearing a bit of Prince dropped into 'Helix' feels absurdly appropriate.

It's v. intriguing how so much is happening without the track ever losing its physicality. You can pick apart the drums, guitar fragments, synth layers and vocal chops individually, but together they form a rhthym that still feels effortless.

That balance is probably a huge part of why Justice had such an effect on me in the first place. Their music rewards really nerdy listening, but never sacrifices style or the simple pleasure of wanting to move.

'Helix' is one of those tracks where I can enjoy the vibe first and then listen again just to work out what the hell they are actually doing beneath the surface 😅💖

He’s back guys.

Insane set!

Forgot how amazing this album/EP is. Keep On Running is incredible and addicting.

Hi guys! Some of us at Hyperzine created a special SebastiAn edition. It’s free to read and features a ton of cool Seb fanart & a fanmix as well! We’d super appreciate if you guys checked it out. :)

Read here via Hyperzine

I love how very dystopian this song sounds.

Someone in the YouTube comments described it as the perfect background music for watching genetically modified humans destroy each other, and frankly I think they nailed it 😂

'Walkman' appeared on SebastiAn's 2006 Ross Ross Ross EP and comes from that delightful period of French electro where making something abrasive, distorted and borderline hostile apparently still counted as perfectly acceptable dance music.

Everything about it feels overdriven. The huge low end, mangled fragments of sound, clipped transients and layers of noise give it a mechanical, almost malfunctioning quality, yet underneath all that chaos the groove is incredibly controlled.

That contrast is probably what I enjoy most. It sounds as though an enormous machine is progressively destroying itself, but somehow you can still dance to it.

SebastiAn's production process is quite fascinating. He has said that his early setup was remarkably simple, using an Akai S950 sampler and an Atari 520ST running Cubase 1, equipment he kept working with for years.

I find the Cubase connection interesting because Justice are big Cubase users too. I've always wanted to try that DAW, although creating anything remotely resembling this would probably be a fairly ambitious place to start 😅

For a song that's twenty years old, 'Walkman' still sounds so vicious and futuristic to me. Like the soundtrack to a cybernetic nightmare you still want to dance to 💃

Maybe it's a silly question, I just don't wanna come across disrespectful or anything. I was also thinking of bringing a Daft Punk record because it sounds like a chill event.

Hi,

I wanted to share a part of my Signatune remix (still a work in progress).

I think I can drop it at the end of October.

edit:

Reedit highly compressed the video/song quality.

It seems to be Anthony Vaccarello’s final show for Saint Laurent, does it also mark the end of SebastiAn’s soundtracks for the brand? Given that they both started together in 2016, a new creative direction usually means a complete overhaul

J'ai retrouvé ce tee-shirt en faisant du rangement. Il était encore dans son emballage d'origine je ne l'ai jamais porté.

Est-ce un modèle rare pour la communauté des collectionneurs Ed Banger ?