Justice’s Gaspard Augé Goes Solo, Releases Debut Single “Force Majeure”

Justice’s Gaspard Augé Goes Solo, Releases Debut Single “Force Majeure”

The wonderfully bleary French dance hedonists Justice have been in the news lately for hitting Justin Bieber with a cease-and-desist after he (allegedly) ripped off their logo for the cover of his new album, which is also called Justice. But Justice deserve to be acknowledged for more than having a cool logo that a pop star bit. It’s been nearly five years since the duo released their album album Woman. Today, though, Gaspard Augé, one half of Justice, has ventured off on his own and released a banger of a single.

Augé has lately been working on Escapades, his first-ever solo album. Today, he’s unleashed the new track “Force Majeure,” a grand and overdriven instrumental track that recalls the Justice anthems of old. The song has a funky keyboard line, a whole lot of smeary and euphoric synth action, and some great crashing drum sounds. In a very cool music video, Augé takes special care to point out those drum sounds.

The “Force Majeure” video barely includes any of the song. Instead, it’s its own minute piece of work. Augé and director Filip Nilsson shot the clip in Turkey, and it seems to take place at a fictional sweatshop where men in suits handcraft cymbals, and then Augé tests out those cymbals by playing “Force Majeure.” As it turns out, though, the factory is not fictional. It’s the home base of Bosphorous Cymbals, and they really do make their cymbals like that, though they don’t wear suits while they’re doing it. The clip makes for an extremely cool and atmospheric trailer for the song itself. Below, check out both the video and the track.

On the video, Augé says:

We were really attracted by the epic visual appeal of cymbal making, bronze, fire, hammers, something almost mythological and elemental like Vulcan or the Nibelungen. We chose Bosphorus Cymbals because they had this very traditional process that barely changed in centuries, in this video i am just a link in the chain of production and quality control, after all these cymbals have been melted, hand hammered, and lathed into a musical object.

“Force Majeure” is out now on Genesis/Ed Banger Records/Because Music.

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