Electronic duo Justice return to the dance floor

In a soundproof room at a radio station on the edge of Paris, around the corner from Saint Ouen’s sprawling flea markets, Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé of Justice sit side by side, legs crossed, hands folded neatly in their laps. They are softly spoken, polite, even a little retiring. And they are in the mood to be provocative.

“We wanted to make it, not painful, but as unpleasant as possible to listen to,” says de Rosnay on Hyperdrama, Justice’s fourth studio album and their first following an eight-year hiatus. Each track is imbued with their signature brand of disco infectiousness, but many take more than one listen to tap into. The epic, glitching Muscle Memory, de Rosnay explains, could only be worked on for a few hours at a time. “On this album, there are some moments that are very repetitive, a bit harsh. There’s something a bit demanding about it … unsettling. We know that it provokes the right sensation and emotion because we feel like it’s very unpleasant, but that’s important.”