Justice: "We wanted 'Hyperdrama' to grow and transform like Tetsuo's arm in Akira"

Justice have shared details on the anime influences behind their latest album 'Hyperdrama', in an interview with streaming platform Crunchyroll .

Published today (November 25), the interview sees the French duo discuss their love of anime, taking the time "to be slow" in their careers and the decision to enlist the help of famed anime director Masanobu Hiraoka to create the visuals for their single 'Neverender' featuring Tame Impala.

The video sees Hiraoka - who has earned acclaim as the mind behind Ju Jutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Gundam, and Little Witch Academia - pull in influences from some of Gaspard and Xavier's favourite anime — including Space Adventure Cobra, Ulysses 31 and Captain Future.

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While you can read the full interview on crunchyroll.com, the anime-specialists have given Mixmag an exclusive snippet of the interview that you can read here:

How would you describe Justice's evolution through the years, or rather Justice's music, Justice's sound?

Xavier: "Some inspirations are immutable. They are all the things we listened to since we were children, especially when we were younger, and that's in all our albums. But 'Hyperdrama' is probably the first time we made an album without consciously referencing music. We never said, "Oh, let's do something like [someone]" or, "Let's make something that feels like that because we like that song". Even in our sound research, we spent a lot of time finding ways to make things sound modern and new to us.

We spent three and a half years on this album, and there's probably, I don't know, a year or more focused on the search to make things move until we got a texture and a sound that is fresh and sometimes bewildering. Whether in terms of sound, writing or song structure, the disc's structure is something that's hyper-abundant, constantly changing, and surprising.

And, typically, at first, listen, I think for the first two or three times, so many things are happening if you don't get spoiled. Generally, you quickly get lost in the album. We could see it when we listened to the press before the album came out, or even for people we work with.

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After two songs, they didn't know if they were on track four or if they were still on the second track. There are so many disruptions, we wanted it to be fun, and it's funny because one of the analogies we often used for this disc was that we wanted it to sound like Tetsuo's arm in Akira when it becomes enormous and it transforms. Something that unfolds and drips everywhere, but doesn't evolve in any really predictable way."

Read Crunchyroll's full interview with Justice here, and watch the Masanobu Hiraoka-directed music video to Justice ft. Tame Impala 'Neverender', below.

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter