Your bag is empty.
I look in the mirror in front of me, and my image is transformed. My curly hair is gone, replaced with a helmet-like adornment. My face is blue. My lithe body is encased in a tight-fitting spacesuit. I look down, my hands pulse with baby blue light. I’m no longer some soft-bodied freelance writer, but one member of a gang of fantastical female warriors dispatched to save the universe from destruction at the hands of treacherous alien monsters. The synth-heavy sounds of French electronic duo Justice’s “Chorus”—a recording from their new live album Woman Worldwide, released on Friday—blares into my headphones, soundtracking our apocalyptic mission.
I’m allowed, for about six minutes, to indulge in the illusion that I’m spending a Friday evening hurdling through time and space with my merry band of female warriors—all creature-like in appearance, among them an extraterrestrial lioness and giant—rushing to battle the great nefarious beasts that threaten our existence. But I’m actually at the Virtual Room, a virtual reality venue in the part of Hollywood that’s oversaturated with souvenir shops and costumed superheroes walking among mere mortals. I almost forget I’m wearing a headset, until one of my “teammates”—the giant—squeals, “Look at you! You’re so small!” to her partner, who had the great misfortune of embodying the avatar of a tiny, ferret-like animal.
We’re all here to experience the release of Woman Worldwide. Justice’s Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay made these recordings of their third studio album, Woman, in 2016, as they toured all over the world performing more than 30 shows in 25 countries. They repurposed and reconstructed their live recordings, but unlike their previous live albums, the artists edited out the mistakes and flaws that inevitably occur during a live performance.
The resulting 10 year anniversary project blends disco, funk and electronica to dizzying effect, creating the kind of immense, dramatic sound perfect for soundtracking the end of the world.
For “Chorus,” track number 11 on Woman Worldwide, Augé and de Rosnay enlist the help of virtual reality production company WITHIN and Annapurna Pictures to produce an interactive music video that premiered at South by Southwest(SXSW) in Austin, Texas this past March. Animator Tyler Hurd designed an 80s-inspired “Tron-like” galaxy where the power of these female warriors would be galvanized to protect the universe and save their alien species from extinction.
To celebrate the release of their new live album on Friday, Justice and Annapurna Pictures opened up the experiences for fans to enjoy in four cities: Los Angeles, Paris, Sydney, and Brussels. We were grouped into sets of three and corralled into separate, curtained off cubicles. A disembodied narrator explained our mission: we could not change the outcome of the game, but we could help defeat the evil forces with our own individual laser-like powers. And so we set off, surfing and gliding through space, using our handsets to extinguish the flying, bug-like demons that hurtled towards us, the beats of “Chorus” providing sonic drama to our journey.
Virtual reality music videos have existed for almost as long as virtual reality has become a commercial medium, in the ‘90s. Daydream VR, then called Fakespace Music, was at the forefront of the art form—today, they produce VR projects for artists like Leann Rimes and The Verbs. Since then, as VR technology has become more polished and easily accessible, more and more musicians are employing it to showcase their music. In 2015, The Weeknd released a VR video for the Eminem remix of his song “The Hills.” At SXSW this past year, Sony screened a VR version of Khalid’s “Young, Dumb, and Broke” video. Bjork, Mac Demarco, The Gorillaz, Muse, Sampha and the Chemical Brothers have all released VR projects in the past decade, demonstrating the adaptability of the medium across genres. As VR sets become more prolific and cheaper to acquire, it’s likely larger, more mainstream artists will adopt it for their own use. Imagine exploring the Louvre with Beyonce and Jay-Z in the video for “Apeshit” or dancing along with Michael in the video for “Thriller.”
The rest of Woman Worldwide is largely just a reinvention of old material, the same synthy dance beats Justice has become notorious for perfecting. There are notes from their ever-popular 2007 single “D.A.N.C.E.” and snippets from other, earlier material. “Chorus” proves to be a suitable soundtrack for the game-like adventure designed by Hurd and WITHIN for Justice—the song’s grandiose, ascending rhythms are perfect for backgrounding the noble mission you are asked to embark on. At some point, after the monsters meet their timely defeat, players are suspended in space, floating majestically amongst the stars, and an angelic chorus resonates in the background. It is almost moving—I wonder if I’m about to cry. We dock on a floating land fragment and tiny, heavenly winged creatures enrich us with medals, presumably for the good work we’ve done to save the galaxies from an incredible demise.