Justice spent four years between albums. What were you up to?
We toured for one year and a half, then we released a tour documentary. The next year we worked on a few projects together and separately. We did 18 minutes of music for a fashion show, called Planisphère; Xavier produced Jamaica’s album, and I did a soundtrack for Mr. Oizo’s movie, called Rubber. Then in early 2010, we started recording the new album. And one year and three months after, it was done.
How did your sound evolve during that time?
We wanted to make something more laid back, but violent at the same time, without the usual tricks of distortion and over-compression. We wanted to have a roomy sound where you could feel the air around the music.
Your Audio, Video, Disco album has been called everything from rock to electronic music. What was your intention?
Audio, video, disco is a Latin motto that means I hear, I see, I learn. We liked the idea of having modern-looking words with an ancient meaning. To us it’s just pop music of today. Emotion over function … We don’t really know about electronic music today, and we don’t feel like we really belong to this genre. Electronic is just a process, and not a proper genre.
How does the live show compare to your album?
Calendar
- Justice
- with special guest Busy P
- April 19, 9 p.m., $35
- At Cosmopolitan Boulevard Pool
When we do albums, we don’t think about people’s reactions, but when it comes to live shows, we just want to make something as entertaining as possible, so we simplify everything. On records you can be more subtle, because you can come back to it and listen to it as much as you want. But for the live shows it has to be more straightforward. Visually, it’s more about white light, plain colors, no visuals, no lasers—it’s more about theatrical tricks than a rave show.
You’ve said that you approach things in ways that aren’t always logical. How so?
It’s often misunderstood. We meant that we didn’t have a proper classical musical training, sound engineering training, which doesn’t mean that we don’t [know] how to write songs and produce them. We like to keep a naive approach, to keep some magic in the process.
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