The debonair duo have remixed U2 and Britney, and angered Kanye West. Still on each other’s wavelengths after almost a decade away, they’re resuming their quest to make ‘the most dramatic music possible’
Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé are sitting in their record company’s London office, both wearing sunglasses and vaping heavily. De Rosnay is in an immaculately pressed denim jacket with a delicate neck scarf, while Augé, with his huge head of curls, dark glasses and thick moustache, recalls prime-era Giorgio Moroder. If it wasn’t for the fact they have vapes rather than cigarettes between their lips, this could be a scene plucked right out of the 1970s. Which isn’t unusual terrain for the French duo Justice, happy as they are to pilfer retro influences to make futuristic and genre-twisting electronic music.
However, for their latest album, Hyperdrama, they wanted to approach things with a bit of a “reset”: seeking to offset expectations and challenge themselves. “Being free from preconceptions was a big part of this record,” says De Rosnay. “To think less and just go more by feeling – to be more spontaneous.”
