Cross

†, alternatively known as Cross, is the debut album of the French electro house duo Justice, released on June 11, 2007.

Recording history

The concept for † was to be an “opera-disco” album. Xavier de Rosnay stated about the opera disco concept:

“We stuck to our original idea to make a 2007 opera-disco album, even if we are conscious that some tracks don’t sound like proper disco at first listen. The best example is the song “Waters Of Nazareth,” which does not sound like disco when you listen to it for the first time. But if you forget that everything is distorted, the bass lines are just really basic disco patterns.”

Several songs were released as singles before the album’s release. “Waters Of Nazareth ” was the first single released by the group in 2005 and also featured “Let There Be Light” as its B-side. “D.A.N.C.E.
” was the second single from the album and released on April 23, 2007. The single also featured the song “Phantom”, which was also released on the Ed Rec Vol. 2 compilation album prior to the release of the album. The song “D.A.N.C.E.” is about and dedicated to Michael Jackson.

There are three credited samples present on the album: “You Make Me Wanna Wiggle” by The Brothers Johnson was sampled for “Newjack”, “Tenebre (main theme)” by Goblin was sampled for “Phantom” and “Phantom Pt. II”, and “Night on Disco Mountain” by David Shire was sampled for “Stress”. However, the band has stated there are many samples in the form of “microsamples” present on the album in which the author of the original composition would not recognize their work was sampled. De Rosnay stated that as much as 400 albums were used as sampled material and spoke about the microsampling process: