Justice and Tame Impala have shared the official video for ‘Neverender’, and announced a new EP featuring remixes of the collaborative song by Kaytranada and Rampa.
The track serves as the opener of the French duo’s fourth and latest album ‘Hyperdrama’, which was released in April – marking their first full-length project in eight years. Tame Impala (aka Kevin Parker) also appears on the cut ‘One Night/All Night’.
Today (September 25) Justice have revealed the epic animated visuals for ‘Neverender’. The clip was produced by Cekai and directed by Masanobu Hiraoka with Kota Iguchi (Tokyo 2020 Olympics) and Armand Beraud (IRIS, A Space Opera By Justice).
The sci-fi and space-age-inspired video is described as “a fantasmagoric journey through the minds of Justice and Tame Impala as they explore the world of ‘Hyperdrama’ via an animation style that seamlessly fuses classic Art Nouveau aesthetics with vintage Japanese anime”.
In a statement, Justice explained: “The ‘Neverender’ music video gave us the perfect opportunity to channel many of our visual influences, all while making them more distinctive through Masanobu Hiraoka’s unique reinterpretation.
“Together with longtime collaborators Pascal Teixeira and Armand Beraud, we drew initial inspiration from the title sequences of the 1980s anime we grew up on, which set the visual tone for the video.”
They continued: “From there, other key images from our teenage years naturally came into play. Whether it was the work of Moebius, psychedelic art, graphic novels, or iconic film posters that fascinated us, Masanobu’s style seamlessly absorbed and unified them all.”
Watch the video for Justice and Tame Impala’s ‘Neverender’ above.
Additionally, the band have announced that a ‘Neverender’ remix EP will be arriving this Friday (September 27). The four-track collection is comprised of the radio edit of the song, an extended version, and new remixes courtesy of Kaytranada and Rampa.
In June, Justice spoke about Tame Impala during an interview with NME at Glastonbury 2024 where the duo headlined the West Holts stage.
“When we work with other musicians – and this was the case with Thundercat, Kevin, RIMON, Miguel and The Flints – the first thing is that we have to love their music,” said Xavier de Rosnay. “Their voice too because we ask them to sing on the record. Most of them are also producers and instrumentalists, but it’s the voice that we’re really looking for.
“We know that when we listen to Tame Impala or Thundercat, everything [of theirs] sounds a bit different – but we can hear that we have the same goal in music.”
He previously told NME that Justice had been listening to Parker’s material “from almost the beginning”. However, de Rosnay revealed that they once turned down the opportunity to remix a big Tame Impala tune.
“To be honest, we liked the first album, but we really understood the genius of Tame Impala before the release of their 2012 album ‘Lonerism’ when we were sent ‘Elephant’ to remix,” he recalled.
“We had to turn it down because the song was too good. We replied saying: ‘Sorry, we can’t think of anything we could do that potentially is going to make it better.’ The song was perfect and hitting so many things right at the same time.”
You can revisit Justice’s full video interview for NME‘s ‘In Conversation’ series above.
In a four-star review of Justice’s show at Glastonbury 2024, NME praised the “utterly bedazzling” light show and said “their stagecraft speaks loud and clear for itself”.
It added: “Of course, they bow out with the immortal ‘D.A.N.C.E’, the only track that could do – ahem – justice to a show like this. Bubbles float across the audience, the lights onstage stutter as if resisting the end of the night and a couple stood near NME savour the moment with a snog. Here was that fabled ‘Glasto moment’.”
Justice are set to hit the road in North America next month ahead of a European tour in late 2024 and into 2025.