At the peak of the opening night of the first weekend of Coachella, atop the Outdoor Theater stage, the silhouettes of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay were unmistakable. The two members of French electronic duo Justice hovered above a table of inscrutable-looking mixers and audio equipment, lanky Augé's curly hair and de Rosnay's angular suit cutting through the fog and panels of LED lights that bent and refracted. your surroundings.
The return of the duo, one of the most influential acts in club music since their debut earlier in the aughts, was one of the most anticipated dance sets of the weekend. Eight years since his last album proper, he reaffirmed that his smooth, hooky funk, altered by jittery samples and screeching distortion, retained all its power.
“It was a lot of fun,” Augé said backstage at the festival the next morning, looking a little less imposing in satin civilian clothes. “With each new album cycle, we think, 'Look how fast the music scene is evolving, who's coming to see us?' “It was a little stressful, especially because the new album wasn't out yet, but it was great to see people react to the new material.”
That new album, “Hyperdrama,” released last week, is as meticulous and bombastic as any in their tight, impeccable catalog. But with a new generation of A-list guest vocalists (Tame Impala, Miguel and Thundercat among them), it has the greatest crossover appeal since its groundbreaking 2007 debut.
“We started with the idea that it was already too late to be late,” De Rosnay laughs. “We thought, 'Let's take as much time as it takes, with unlimited time and resources, to make this record.' Let's take it as far as we can and see what happens.'”
Emerging from the heady 2000s Parisian club scene built around his Ed Banger label, Justice sounded like dance music but performed like a classic rock act. The talkative De Rosnay and the contemplative Augé constructed an iconography straight out of a Black Sabbath double vinyl, with scholarly attention to Steely Dan's analog signal chains. They took what they needed from club music on hits like “DANCE,” but they aimed for something much bigger: artists like The Weeknd, U2 and Red Hot Chili Peppers were big fans. It's fitting that her 2019 Grammy Award for Dance/Electronic Album came from “Woman Worldwide,” an LP of live remixes that draws from 2016's “Woman,” hits like The Who's “Live At Leeds” and “Kick Out.” The Jams” by MC5.
When they returned to the studio after the pandemic, they wanted to change their traditional approach of tracking live instruments themselves and then indenting them digitally. They were intrigued by the structures of modern hip-hop, where tracks collide with each other in chaotic, exhilarating turns. They discovered it with “Incognito,” a centerpiece of “Hyperdrama” that goes back and forth from orchestral sounds to high-NRG synth pop and white-knuckle noise.
Fans listen as Justice performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
“We had these kinds of songs where there were abrupt breaks, something like a hardcore aesthetic, but composed in a slightly melancholic way,” De Rosnay said. “We wrote as many parts as possible, until we could get to the juice of our music, that loop that we can listen to forever, and eliminate the rest. “Everything is rave, then everything is disco, without overlapping elements.”
Tracks like the nervous and agitated “Generator” join softer and more vampiric material like “Moonlight Rendez-vous”. To tie it all together, the pair turned to a formidable roster of guest vocalists, whose melodic skills give “Hyperdrama” a certain structure and tenderness. Justice has long made creative use of vocals and samples, but with Tame Impala's Kevin Parker on “Neverender” and “One Night/All Night,” Miguel's corduroy leads on “Saturnine,” and Thundercat's ecstatic falsetto On “The End,” the album feels grounded in all the difficulties of the genre.
They chose vocalists who were “all very independent in the sense that they themselves perform and produce their music without compromise,” De Rosnay said, highlighting the contributions of independent and R&B artists such as Rimon, Connan Mockasin and the Flints.
Justice typically takes more than five years to create his records, an eternity in the ever-hectic streaming era. He didn't disappear completely: In 2019, he released a delightfully confusing concert film, “Iris: A Space Opera by Justice,” filmed without a crowd in attendance. Augé released a solo LP, “Escapades,” in 2021.
Since it ended, the kind of sophisticated disco-funk he loves to shred has become a major force in the pop top 40. But how have audience expectations changed since then? It would completely take the mystery out of Justice if he ever made it to TikTok. Can a band that is intentionally, almost anachronistically distant, hold the interests of today's crowds accustomed to constant connection?
“We're happy to give them something that we think is relevant and finished,” Augé said. “But nothing disposable.”
“It's more difficult in terms of purely commercial achievements, but that's okay,” De Rosnay said. “We want as many people as possible to hear it. But not at any price or by any means. We don't like to be too exposed. I love Marc Bolan from T. Rex, and I bought a documentary about him, and about four minutes in I thought, 'Oh no, I don't want to see that, I don't care who it is in private.' “
Justice will play the Coachella stage on April 12 in Indio.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
For millennial fans, the era in which Justice emerged, now shamelessly dubbed “indie-sleazy,” is fondly remembered as a last gasp of pre-iPhone nightlife, where crazy Parisian house music swept through sweaty nightclubs. and one could dance. (or do other things) without permanent digital evidence. Gen Z crowds remember Ed Banger's outrageous heyday with the same longing that '90s rock fans showed for the freewheeling '70s.
While the members of Justice are students of music history, they're a little baffled about how that era came to be remembered as a golden era for nightlife.
“I'm not sure it was better,” Augé said. “Maybe from the phone aspect, where you don't have that instant recall.”
“I think we were very lucky to be part of the scene when we were young,” De Rosnay said. “But we actually felt like something big was happening in California before we felt it in Europe. It was very clandestine. “It was a lot of fun, but we’re not nostalgic.”
As the duo left the Coachella grounds to relax after the previous night's full-speed performance, they felt the new material making its way among tens of thousands of Coachella attendees who didn't know what to expect after so much time off the road. . Now that Daft Punk is officially retired, Justice is the standard-bearer for the storied legacy of French electronic music, despite going to great lengths to subvert and trash it on record. One song on “Hyperdrama,” “Dear Alan,” is a tribute dedicated to Alan Braxe, the famous French house producer who helped forge the genre they have now eclipsed.
De Rosnay was proud to finally win over at least one new young Justice listener that night: her own daughter.
“Before, he wasn't interested in what we did, which is fair,” De Rosnay laughs. “We started making music together 20 years ago, so now it seems like we're reaching a new generation of listeners, and some of them are very young. This morning he texted me to say, 'Oh, was it okay last night?' But I think whatever I do, if I wear a certain type of clothing, she doesn't think it's cool.”
