Justice about anime, remixes and leaving the club scene

When Justice liberated Hyperdramatheir first album in eight years, this April they never expected to dominate the dance scene like they once did. Gaspard Auger and Xavier de Rosnet began performing together as Justice in 2003, and over the past twenty years they’ve built a cult following following their every beat, but the wide-open reception they’ve received from their contemporaries has taken them by surprise.

Even as one of the most influential electronic bands of the past few decades, praised for their fusion of French house and rock, Hyperdrama He served to reinvigorate Juitice to both long-time fans and new listeners with tracks like Tame Impala’s Neverender and other collaborations with Miguel, Konnan Moccasin and Thundercat.

On November 10, Justice will be the headliners Hypefest Hong Kongoffering visitors the chance to see one of the duo’s rare live performances. While de Rosnay, who responded on behalf of the duo, says they rarely perform live, their shows are back on track. It’s just a lot of trying to get everything done so that you and the crowd are in sync.”

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How are you feeling before performing at Hypefest Hong Kong next month?

We’ve performed in Hong Kong a few times, but it’s always been back and forth. As far as I remember, this is a rather futuristic city – something like “Blade Runner”. Hong Kong is the future as we imagined it in the 80s.

Historically, you’ve looked to the ’80s for musical and visual inspiration. This influence combined with anime, another major source of inspiration, really came together in the recent Neverender visuals. How did you come up with this concept?

The one-minute anime intros we watched as kids have always been a big part of our musical and visual inspiration. They always managed to pack so much emotion into such a short period of time. We also loved sitcoms like Punky Brewster and Silver spoons.

Because of this, we decided to create our own anime from Neverender. We worked with the Japanese studio Sekai. Masanobu is a master of Japanese animation techniques, which are much harder to find from an animator in Europe or even the US. At the same time, he does it in a modern way that has these psychedelic vibes that go with our music and Kevin’s (Parker, front man for Tame Impala) voice. It was a way to do that while still making a modern music video that wasn’t a 100% remake of something from the 80s.

Speaking of “Neverender”, you released an entire mini-album with remixes of the track, including with Kaytranada. What is your philosophy on remixes at this point in your career?

The remixes were more of (our label’s) Ed Banger stuff. To be honest, we feel a bit disconnected from the club scene in general. Remixes are not very important to us now. That said, we’re still in the club scene and open to new things, so we let Pedro (Winter, founder of Ed Banger) let people know. We like Kaytranada, so we’re glad he’s on board.

Why do you feel disconnected from the club scene?

We just grew up. The club scene has always been something that belongs to the youth. When we were in our 20s, we went clubbing and we really fit that type of energy. Now, when we walk into a club, people will think we’re undercover cops from the narcotics agency.

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Eight years have passed since then woman and Hyperdrama. Was Justice’s age as a group or your individual age a consideration when making the new album?

Our own age, not so much. The only thing we’ve been thinking about a little bit is who might be listening after the eight-year gap between this project and our last record. Obviously there were some doubts, but it never got in the way of the music we were making. We never try to jump on the last train or follow what’s going on with music, especially in the club.

The reception was the best surprise for us. We’re at a point where the generations of our listeners are crossing over, which we saw at the first shows we played at Coachella – the front two rows were mostly people in their 20s. For most of them, it was the first time we saw our game at the festival. We’ve been here long enough for a new generation of people to discover our music. And we don’t feel like an “old group”. I think this album, the live show and everything around it is still very modern.