Justice For All

Considering the pressure he's under, Justice is coping remarkably well. His wife is just about to give birth to their first child, and, while he holds down a day job, Justice himself is also busying himself with another important delivery. Hears To The Future, his fourth long player is available to the world on March 27th, and he's taken a day off work to talk to the press.
It's another unpredictable step for the shockingly young - he's only 27 - and probably the most prolific drum'n'bass producer around. However, talk to Justice, aka Tony Bowes about drum'n'bass, or listen to Hears To The Future, and it's quite obvious that he's keen to escape from the greater jungle family. It's a break with a scene Tony has been involved with since his late teens, a place where he forged an unmistakeable identity.
Tony, you've been making music for the best part of a decade, although you're only 27. Why did you start making music?
"As a kid, I was always wandering around with a tape machine, trying to record people and songs off the telly, but it all really began when I was doing a course in media studies around 1990.That's when I met Blame, and we started going to and later on DJing at raves and parties in our area. I also recorded my first tune with him - 'Death Row', and we released stuff on Chill Records, Moving Shadow, Creative Wax and Precious Materials. We also released an album in 1996, Emotions With Intellect as Icons on our own Modern Urban Jazz label. Soon after that, Blame went to work for Bukem, running and recording for the 720 label."

Your next album release, Viewpoints, drew heavily on Detroit for inspiration, while Hears To The Future combines techno with electro, hip-hop and a mere smattering of drum'n'bass. Why did you make the move from your original sound to a more across the board selection?
"It's a way of paying respect to the sources that originally inspired me. 'Cycle 2' (classic Detroit techno track on the new album) sounds like an old Kenny Larkin tune. In fact, the similarity is uncanny. I feel that Hears To The Future will get me out of the one little area I've been boxed into. I never really felt like I was a drum'n'bass artist, but that's what I've been lumped in with. I also made a conscious effort to try out different styles because I've been making music for ten years. We watched drum'n'bass being born, we were at the forefront of it all, something which I'm thankful for. Now I want to do something else, it's like I'm working in reverse. Anyway, all dance music is pretty much just that, drums and bass. The Yanks are much fairer than the UK media: they just call everything that sounds like dance music 'electronica', which is a much more open way of looking at it."

So do you think drum'n'bass is in a state of decline?
"People like Bukem always made great music, and when Blame got that call, he was right to go down that route, he's more of a drum'n'bass artist anyway. Personally though, I think drum'n'bass is more miss than hit nowadays. Someone does a killer tune, and everyone copies it for about a year. Having said that, the good stuff will always be there: I'll still dabble in it, I won't dismiss it because it was my grounding. Unfortunately though, for a scene as big as your small fingernail there's far too much politics going on. I wish certain people would just get on with it and make the music."
Getting on with it is exactly what Justice has done, working with electro, techno and hip-hop patterns on 'Future'. Teaming up with unknown Hollywood based rapper Danoyd - "he's got a great delivery, a great flow, he twists the words brilliantly and he's a wacky geezer to boot" - the album also boasts the extremely chart friendly Bowiesque 'Faith & Reason'. Sung by Justice's new recording partner Miles Copeland, it's no surprise that the song will soon be released as a single, or indeed that Copeland is currently co-writing 'Milestones' the follow up to 'Future'.
"Milestones will be different to anything I've ever done before," he enthuses. "Miles has such a broad musical taste, he's bringing a new dimension to what I do. He's also responsible for the Hears To The Future title, which is like a play on words. It's the message he wrote in the guest book the day I got married."