Features

Metro and Justice

Justice and Metro recently released the 839 album on Justice's Modern Urban Jazz label. We spoke to Tony Justice to find out more...

Can you give us some background on Modern Urban Jazz...

Mjazz was formed back in 1996 as an outlet for futuristic, deep, abstract and experimental drum & bass. Basically it allows us to release more challenging music and to work with and collaborate with artists, new or established, and push different and more abstract styles of DnB. I guess within the scene we are known for releasing different material since the seminal Icons LP up until this point.

What's the story behind the name 839?

Basically when I am writing I start trawling through samples and sounds. A friend had sent me a stack of audiobooks on CD to go through. In amongst these was the classic Neuromancer by William Gibson, the creator of cyber-punk, and there in amongst it was this guy saying "0467 839". So I sampled this along with some other bits and got a hook going with the 839 vocal. So the track got finished along with the other LP bits and when we came to naming the LP, 839 seemed nicely abstract and ambiguous.

Can you tell me a little about the process behind creating the album, from the influential to the technical?

Myself and Metro would start going through some ideas, sketching out loads of bits, going through films and stuff looking for samples and pinging ideas over AIM to each other, technology has really improved the collaborative process whereby you can work in two different places. Influence wise a strong cinematic theme runs throughout, alongside Detroit techno and 808 and 909 drums, old school synths and our own slant on the minimal scene.

You have a strong partnership with Scott Metro, can you tell me a little behind the partnership and why you think it works as well as it does?

Basically we grew up during the early days of hip hop and electro, so we share a whole load of musical reference points, coupled with the fact we were around the rave explosion and the inception of drum & bass, so I guess with a lot of shared influence it makes it easy to work, because we are approaching it from the same starting point.

What do you believe are the recurring themes that are found throughout the album, and what are some of the obvious influences?

There are some classic sounding Justice synths that crop up, quite a few filmic sounds and dialogue, lots of space for sounds to work within, call and response, originality, some memorable riffs and lots of drum machine and synth action all wrapped up within 170 BPM.

Did you do many collaborative pieces with the album, and if so who did you bring in to help and why?

There are three tracks on the LP that are collabs. Lite Star features Muted from Iceland whose music I really like. He's up-and-coming in the game and I thought it would be cool to get him involved as I knew his sound would merge well with ours. On Touch Feel we bought in Momentum who I have known and worked with for years, and although he is quite unknown, he's capable of some great music and I think will be a big talent to come. Diamond EyE takes control on a remix of Sand Delay and goes real deep, again D is breaking through right now and is making waves in the scene. Really, with all our collaborators it's about bringing through artists who are doing great music, and we can help move them forward by offering a platform and a leg up, as well as recognition for their music.

What do you believe so far are the stand out tunes on the album, and why?

Human Thinking is and has been getting lots of plays and support. A lot of people are saying it has a classic synth line that draws you in and personally I think it's a bit different to anything else out there. 839 is also getting a lot of props for its sparsed out dubiness and echoey drum break and the vocal cos everyone asks "what's 839 all about?!"