Bloghouse and Indie Sleaze

Two Paris producers entered a college radio remix contest in 2003. Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay stripped Simian's "Never Be Alone" down to its molecular structure, rebuilt it with slapped bass and compressed synth stabs that sounded like they'd been run through a guitar amp. The track won. Pedro Winter—then managing Daft Punk—heard it and signed them immediately to his new imprint, Ed Banger Records. The label had launched that year as a division of Headbangers Entertainment, operating out of a Paris office where Winter, under the alias Busy P, was building a roster that treated electronic music like punk rock: raw, referential, unapologetically loud.