Time Painted All Our Pages

Justice featuring Rimon “Afterimage”

The beauty of Justice’s early material was that it was elegantly crude. They were big and loud and dumb, but also rather thoughtful in their craft. They were masters of artful clipping. Their new record still has some of that going for it, but it’s all much more…tasteful? A little more refined? Or just a little more normal? In any case, a lot of the record sounds like a tribute to the past 25 years or so of French house in general and Alan Braxe in particular. The vibe suits them, especially on a song as ecstatic as “Afterimage.” You know how baking websites will show you how to make a mass produced thing like a Hostess cupcake, and maybe they’ll “elevate” it with fresh ingredients? “Afterimage” is sort of like that, but for filter disco. You get the form, you get the thrill, but that custom vocal instead of a sample? That’s the fancy ganache.

Buy it from Amazon.

Anitta “Savage Funk”

It can be so difficult to write about music like this without sounding like a dork. You can play amateur musicologist, but being a nerd about baile funk gets in the way of making it clear that this music is waaaaay more physical than cerebral. Writing about how aggressively horny the song is just makes you sound like a dweeb, a prude, or a lame perv. Just trust me that this one rules, OK? It’s very fun.

Buy it from Amazon.