Some may view The Penelopes’ chill room cover of The Beastie Boys’ rap-rock classic “Sabotage” as sacrilege. But the French dance-rock duo says their downtempo, atmospheric overhaul embodies their fearless approach to track making. And if you don’t buy that, just blame it on the weed.

“We like to be surprised and we like to surprise people too,” says Axel Basquiat from his home in southern France. “And we wanted to make something more stoney. We smoke a lot of joints. We wanted to do something very slow, very strange for us. We wanted a new interpretation of it.”

Basquiat and his electro-pop partner, Vincent T, are the latest to emerge from Paris’ digital renaissance—an inspiring movement that’s given the electronic music world Justice, Air, Daft Punk, and Sébastien Tellier, among others. The duo’s U.S. debut, Priceless Concrete Echoes, produced by Black Strobe’s Arnaud Rebotini, is a melodic mix of New Orderish dance rock, disco, pop, shoegaze and the sexy synth-wave purveyed by their fellow Francophiles.

“When we have an idea, we follow the idea to the end. It’s also the sophistication of the music. It’s not rock. French music is very sophisticated. We try to keep that in our minds to be demanding and to be strange and unique.”

“We are speaking together to effect change,” Basquiat, enjoying a leisurely day in the Burgundy countryside, says of the French dance scene. “All these people have several different influences. We all try to make our own music. But we all don’t want to follow something.”

While a far cry from the speaker-blowing digital terror of Justice or the minimalist sex-wave of Tellier, you can imagine both artists having fun remixing “Long Black Fly,” a Calvin Harris-eque electrofunk jewel. And the gents in Air would surely be enamored with the ethereal bounce of “Your Plan for Happiness.”

“Maybe the reason is because we are very devoted,” Basquiat speculates of the rise of Paris’ electronic music underground.  “When we have an idea, we follow the idea to the end. It’s also the sophistication of the music. It’s not rock. French music is very sophisticated. We try to keep that in our minds to be demanding and to be strange and unique.”

And besides just being stoned, the “Sabotage” cover was also done to show their hip-hop roots and separate themselves from the pack. “It was really just to show people that we are not just new wave,” Basquiat says. “We are not only fans of New Order but also hip-hop. For us it was a good mix.”

Words: Dave Wedge

as featured in Issue 29