"We are each other’s Rick Rubin": Justice on keeping production in house for new album Hyperdrama
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Tomorrow, French electronic music duo Justice will release Hyperdrama, their first studio album in five years. This week, Justice's Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé sat down with Zane Lowe for an extensive Apple Music interview surrounding the making of the new record.
In that interview, the pair lifted the lid on their creative process, discussing their decision not to involve outside collaborators in the production process.
"Sometimes we entertain the idea of having a producer working with us," Xavier told Zane. "But a producer more in the sense of a Rick Rubin [...] It's very important to have someone like this when you make a record. He’s there to remind you that it’s not about being technical, it’s about making music that feels good."
Though they were initially tempted to rope in a Rubinesque figure to augment their creative partnership, the duo ultimately decided that this wasn't necessary, and that the purity of their unique relationship was something they needed to preserve.
"In our band, we are each other’s Rick Rubin, in a sense," Xavier continued. "In Justice, I am Gaspar’s producer and he is my producer. I’m always here to tell you okay, think about this differently, try something else, it could be better. Or just to tell you, it’s good when it’s good.
Even if it sounds less good than with an actual mixer, we’re going to keep it in a home studio, the two of us doing it
"We feel that it’s better that we stay in a closed system, just the two of us. Because the results are so dependent on those decisions, bad or good, that we take, and that we mix it ourselves - even if it sounds less good than with an actual mixer, we’re going to keep it in a home studio, the two of us doing it."
Elsewhere in the interview, the pair illuminated their approach to sampling, discussing the origin of a sample from new song Incognito. Xavier tells Zane that they initially stumbled on the music of Italo disco artist Clay Pedrini on YouTube, but when they downloaded the high-quality version of his track New Dream (Instrumental) to lift a sample, it didn't have the same lo-fi magic as the YouTube upload they first heard.
"The actual record sounded less good than the multi-generational downgrade of the uploads on YouTube, so we had to sample the YouTube version to have this grainy texture that we wanted to have," Xavier says.
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"Often we find that decisions in production and engineering, they are on the side of style and sensation, more than in the sense of: ‘does it sound perfect and good by the standards of hi-fi?’ It doesn’t really matter. If the good thing was the thing that was ripped ten times and was so downgraded that it has this bitcrush and glow to it, then we should go for that."
Later in the conversation, Justice weighed in on the use of artificial intelligence in music, telling Zane that they "see it as a great tool", and comparing the use of AI to working with generative tools that leave elements of the creative process to chance.
"We’ve made tracks like this," Xavier tells Zane. "I’m thinking of Randy on our previous album. We used MetaSynth, it’s the software that was used on [Aphex Twin song] Windowlicker. It’s an old thing [...] At some point, there’s a decision that’s not a human-made decision and it’s generated by your computer, and that produces great results. It’s great to have more tools.
"You get the tools, and if you’re good with them, you’re gonna make something good. If you’re not good with them, then you can have all the tools in the world, but you’re not going to make good results."
