Electronic duo Justice returns with “Hyperdrama,” a musical rollercoaster ride with varied climates

With this album, which took more than three years to produce, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé go one step further than ever before, mixing pop and sound experiments for 50 minutes. Great art.

Four albums in twenty years isn’t a lot. But Justice always took his time and refused to bow to the record industry’s hyperactive agenda. A relative slowness that goes hand in hand with the demands of the Parisian tandem and its well-known attention to detail – solving a half-decibel problem can take weeks. This time eight years have passed, an eternity, between the last album, Woman (2016) and the new one, Hyperdramawhich will be released on Friday, April 26th. And the wait was worth it.

We immediately recognize Justice from the first bars of this collection of 13 tracks. However, this impression of a reunion is deceptive: even if the aggression and distortions are still there, the musicians and producers Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé have updated their formula and their sound. To be convinced, you only have to listen to their first album again Cross (2007), to which they make some strong allusions here – generator for example, it is a little genesis Version 2024, richer, fuller, more intense, more epic, more everything.

Fact, hyperdrama, There is no drama and no tears. It is a hyperdramatization of sensations and feelings in which everything from euphoria to discomfort becomes worse. With this album, which took more than three years to create, Xavier and Gaspard go one step further than ever before, mixing pop and sound experiments for 50 minutes.

On board this musical rollercoaster ride, the duo seems to have great fun disorienting the listener: organic or digital? Aggressive or festive? Am I at the beginning or the end of the song? Justice explores a variety of moods, often within the songs themselves. The tracks are incredibly versatile, turbulent, harsh, they shamelessly mix the brutality of gabber with the sugar of disco and combine real hooks with soft tenderness.

No fewer than six guests at the microphone, only the voices of angels

The diversity of climate zones is also explained by the great novelty of this fourth album, which features a record number of guests at the microphone. There are six in total, starting with Kevin Parker, the mastermind of Tame Impala, whose divine voice graces two tracks, Neverender (opening) and One night/All night (Singles party at Scout), instant classic for the dance floor.

Although Gaspard and Xavier have formed an almost double unit since their beginnings, working independently from each other in the studio set up at Xavier in Paris, they have not been content with the banal and now all too commonplace remote work with their hosts. The idea was to meet in the same room and briefly form a trio group with each of his guests. Only voices of angels.

This is how Rimon, a still unknown Dutch singer, was introduced to them by Pedro Winter, the head of their label Ed Banger Afterimage, a balanced piece of synthetic disco between grace and menace. The Flints, two similarly little-known British twins, whisper about psychedelics Mannequin Love. Talented bassist Thundercat, whose voice Justice loves, was deprived of his favorite instrument to bring the finale to life The end. Connan Mockasin alone, in spoken word mode about the galactic melancholy ofResearcherworked from New Zealand, with images of Pierre La Police and Moebius as his only guides.

Our absolute favorite is the very princely falsetto of the American Miguel. Combined with Justice’s firepower, he makes futuristic R&B Saturnine, disturbingly slow, as if constantly impeded in its progress, one of the highlights of this record. His voice is rough, the result of a single mono recording, without reverb or any effects, which initially caused the singer to panic. In the end, it is precisely the contrast between this naked, organic and unpretentious voice and the diverse technical sound strips that give the piece that certain something.

Gabber and Italo disco started in full swing

The instrumental titles also provide pleasant surprises. The steamroller generatoras mentioned above, close to the naive and cheerful elegance of Dear Alana tribute to Alan Braxe, the pioneer of the French Touch. Incognitodeveloped like several other pieces”from a deconstructed and slowed gabber rhythm“, avoids the accident of a racing car starting at full speed by softening it with well-considered Italo-disco samples. And on this disc we even find a surprising jazzy and melancholic UFO on the saxophone called Moonlight rendezvous.

Radical, excessive, wavering, moving without warning from fear to pure joy, Hyperdrama From start to finish it pushes and abuses, so there’s never a dull moment. This album, perhaps their best to date, definitely their most successful, can only be tamed after listening to it at least three times and will definitely win you over. The initial difficulty is addictive upon arrival. We know it when the title that was annoying the first time becomes your favorite. And that’s been the case for a long time.

“Hyperdrama” by Justice (Ed Banger/Because Music) will be released on Friday, April 26, 2024

Justice, who kicked off his world tour at the American festival Coachella in April, will begin the French leg of the tour at We Love Green on June 1st. They will then be on June 17th at the Nuits de Fourvière, on July 4th at the Beauregard Festival, on July 6th at the Main Square Festival, on July 11th at Les Déferlantes, on July 13th at Musilac, on July 14th at Terres du Son and will be a guest at the Dour Festival (Belgium) July 21st. The tour ends with two Accor Arenas in Paris on December 17th (fully occupied) and 18th December 2024.