According to French electronic music duo Justice, you work with some of its biggest innovators. At least that's what the pair did on its fourth album, Hyperdrama.
Don't call it a comeback either, as Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé claim they never left despite not dropping a full project together since 2016's Woman. (Though, it's worth noting that Augé dropped a solo project in the form of 2021's Escapades.)
Over those eight years, the dance music landscape has evolved thanks to the introduction of streaming and the ability for anyone to become a famous DJ overnight. Yet, on Hyperdrama, Justice looks for spacey, cinematic-like soundscapes that build with each groovy bassline and dynamic synths. It's polished and cohesive with its orchestral sound, unlike Justice's iconic 2007 debut, Cross, which is still highly regarded. That project, which brought Justice's blend of disco, electronica, and rock to the mainstream with club-ready bangers like "D.A.N.C.E.," established the French duo as the next big thing since Daft Punk.
"When we listen back to it, it still sounds like an anomaly to us that such a rough record connected with a wide audience," de Rosnay says of the debut album's success and legacy. "We have absolutely no explanation. Maybe for us, the only rational explanation is that this record was here at a moment. It sounded a bit like what you listen to as a teenager to annoy your parents. So yeah, that's the only explanation because nothing makes sense for us."
"You're always stronger when you're part of a scene, especially when there are like several bands, even if Daft Punk's music and ours is different," says Xavier de Rosnay.
Photo by Julia & Vincent
French Revolution
De Rosnay and Augé are talking to New Times over Zoom just as they are getting ready for their headlining set at Las Vegas' Life Is Beautiful music festival. It's the first show on their U.S. run, which will eventually make its way to Miami for their appearance at III Points.When Just first broke through, there was renewed interest in the French scene thanks to Ed Banger, and Daft Punk's now-legendary Coachella set in 2006 had changed the landscape.
"You're always stronger when you're part of a scene, especially when there are like several bands, even if Daft Punk's music and ours is different," de Rosnay explains. "Of course, it helped tremendously that they were here even before that because, thanks to Daft Punk, it became almost normal for a French band to exist outside of France. And, of course, the fact that they were there at this moment. Pedro Winter was still managing Daft Punk and making Ed Banger Records, plus all of the satellite artists such as Kavinsky, for example — it gave the sensation of a scene."
Since then, Justice has evolved, working with groups such as the London Contemporary Orchestra on Woman. This time around, the duo recruited Thundercat, Miguel, and Tame Impala to help execute their vision.
"It just happens that this time, our collaborators are more famous, but that was not the reason why we got in touch with them," de Rosnay adds. "These are people that we've always loved. For example Kevin Parker's music, we've been listening to it from even before the first album, since when he was releasing his first EP on a modular and for a very long time, we thought it would make sense to make music with him. We were just waiting for the right moment and the right tracks. When we started working on the record and made the demo of 'Neverender,' we thought, Okay, now it's time to get in touch and ask him if he's up for making music with us. And the same thing with Thundercat and Miguel."
Ultimately, Hyperdrama expands on the sound that Justice helped cultivate all those years ago — a loud arena sound built from years of tinkering in the studio. Though there are only 13 songs, de Rosnas says they experimented for months with the concept of this project. This led to the creation of multiple tracks that will probably never see the light of day unless as bonus tracks on an anniversary edition down the road.
Justice is focused on making innovative music in an age where deluxe editions and chart numbers are the biggest focus for record labels and mainstream artists.
"We worked a bit the same way we worked on all of our other records, which is we make the first tracks, and once we nail something that we love, we go from there, and we're like, 'Okay, so this is going to be like the opening track. After this, we'll have that. What do we need after this for it to flow?' Depending on what we already have, we try to make something that flows from the beginning to the end and that offers diversity for this record. Although it's very diverse, we wanted it to be focused too, not overwhelming, because we like things when they're overwhelming."
Space Race
De Rosnay and Augé have always been fixated on the space age and its visions of the future. Films like Blade Runner offer a glimpse of the future they grew up believing would come true. Throughout their career, Justice's members have tapped into that visual narrative and developed a sound unmistakably their own. During the recording of Hyperdrama, Justice sought to avoid making something familiar or overly reliant on these influences, eschewing analogue sounds in search of something much broader."I would say that Hyperdrama is maybe like the record we made that is less referenced to other music," de Rosnay shares. "It was more like a spontaneous project for us, in the sense that it's something we made not looking back at the music we love although we can't help it. Of course, when we make music, our influences can appear unconsciously, but we never, in the case of this album, thought, Oh, let's make something like this, or Let's incorporate this and that, at least for the moment when we were writing the music because then all the parts of the production were really not spontaneous. It was really like a long walk of honing and refining the things."
In September, Justice dropped its EP Neverender (Remixes), which introduces reworks of the track by Rampa and fellow III Points headliner Kaytranada. Although Justice didn't directly work with the producers on the remixes, the band did give them the blessing to be released alongside the song's anime-inspired music video.
"We grew up watching anime on TV — Space Adventure Cobra, Captain Future, and Cat's Eyes, for example — and we always love the introduction sequences of those anime because, most of them, the music would be some sort of like jazz, funk, or like very uplifting music with a lot of the best action scenes happening in this two-minute sequence. For us, it's always been, in a way, the most efficient combination of music and images that you could produce. So, for 'Neverender,' we decided to make our own introduction sequence, and we asked Masanobu Hiraoka to make it. We liked that he had the skills of Japanese animation that we love. That's something very difficult to find in Europe or the U.S., and at the same time, he makes it in a modern way with a touch of psychedelia."
Since their early shows in the mid-2000s, Justice has been a staple live group fans clamor to see, whether it be a DJ set in a warehouse or the main stage at Coachella. De Rosnay and Augé's music and hype have lasted the test of time, making them a consistent headliner throughout their career.
"When we do all the preparation work, it's like way before we start being booked. We always try to work thinking of the best-case scenario. Like when we imagine the live show, the techniques, and the visual aspect of it, we always work thinking, Okay, let's try to make it better than the previous time. Let's try to make something new and fun and fresh and as big as possible. Then, if we're lucky, we will be able to show it at the right slots in the places that we want to show it to, but it's never granted, and we feel very lucky. We go there, we shoot in the dark, hoping for the best, and then we see what happens."
III Points 2024. 3 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday, October 18, and Saturday, October 19, at Mana Wynwood, 2217 NW Fifth Ave., Miami; iiipoints.com. Tickets cost $199.99 to $619 via iiipoints.frontgatetickets.com.
