Preparing for a workout, I put on this album for the first time in ages. My first encounter with Justice was as a junior high school student. My friend, Zach, introduced me to them after he fell down a French House rabbit-hole–something that stemmed from a love for Daft Punk. While I still hold that Daft Punk is the better duo, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay also do an outstanding job.

Cross was probably my single most-listened to album between 2007 and 2010. I was enraptured by “D.A.N.C.E.,” “DVNO,” and both parts of “Phantom”. Frankly, back then, I had little affection for “Genesis” or “Let There Be Light,” but now I think the strong, two-part intro sequence is one of the best parts of the whole album. The only part that might compare is, of course, “The Party” (feat. Uffie).

Uffie is an absolutely necessary cross-over to this album. Ed Banger Records is iconic in its own right, and the cross-fertilization of Ed Banger artists on this album did a great deal to establish Ed Banger’s sonic identity (for more, check out ED REC, Vols. 1 and 2).

Another thing that I love about Cross is that its rapid popularity can largely be attributable to creative, independent online spaces. There’s a reason why this genre has come to be known as bloghouse.

Justice, then, represents to me some of the enormous potential that pre-silo online spaces offered. I think of Justice, as well as Ed Banger Records more broadly, as symbols of that movement, and this has given me an immeasurable affection for them.