After releases on Method 808 and Future Classic, a collaboration with Chloé Caillet and an official remix for Fatboy Slim, PPJ returns with a powerful double single.
On the A-side, “Me Pega” delivers their own high-energy take on the Santa Catarina tech-house sound twisted, sped up and injected with extra punch. Inspired by Sarro, a Brazilian street dance, the track is built to move bodies from the very first beat.
The B-side, “Tem Carnaval”, is a true club anthem. Here, PPJ celebrates Rio’s street carnival with a track that fuses the iconic elements of samba with the strength, precision and forward drive of pure techno. Recorded right after a full day of partying during Rio’s 2025 carnival, the track carries all the raw, joyful intensity of the moment — which might explain why Paula’s voice sounds slightly broken. A perfect timing too: Rio’s carnival kicks off just a few days after the release.
…………………..
PPJ make music like they’re tuning into a dozen pirate frequencies at once. Led by vocalist Páula with production from Povoa (separately supported by Four Tet, Ben UFO and Barry Can’t Swim, with recent releases on Live From Earth), the duo create sounds ranging from neoperreo to Miami bass – mad, maximal, knowingly global. Together, they combine Brazilian storytelling with techno-inspired worldwide street rhythm. They’ve supported the likes of Justice and collaborated with Mixmag cover star Chloé Caillet, while also being recognised and tapped up internationally by Fatboy Slim, Method808 and Future Classic.
PPJ started by accident. Locked down together in a house in Normandy, PPJ emerged from circumstance. Povoa brought his background in jazz, kaleidoscopic world of UK post-dubstep and bass hooks. Páula, meanwhile, had been exploring the emotional roads that led back to her birthplace of Brazil.
Their Bloco EP series (2023-2024) was inspired by Rio’s street parties which was vocalist Páula’s reality for many years, spaces where beauty and violence live shoulder-to-shoulder. The series brought the group newfound acclaim from the likes of Resident Advisor, Mixmag, DJ Mag and NME. “We’re kind of in-between,” Povoa says of the band. “We used to do live bands and play instruments, so we were on the electronic side of indie music. Then we switched it to be the more indie part of electronic music. We like existing in that space.”
Find a PPJ live show, and watch as Páula invades the audience with wild abandon, rewriting what club performance can look like. It’s this unruly charisma that’s carried them to Berghain (Berlin) and Razzmatazz or NITSA Club (Barcelona), and onto the USBs of The Blessed Madonna, Panorama Bar Resident’s Cormac, HAAi or even the legend Benny Benassi. With club credibility secured, they turn their gaze toward puncturing the self-seriousness of dance culture. Their latest EP, JOKER, is their permission slip.
The duo’s new era, JOKER, embraces a figure that appears everywhere from card decks to carnival culture and mirrors PPJ’s own personality: funny, eerie, unpredictable. They lean further into club music but refuse to sand down their weird edges. On “Coeur,” their collaboration with Chloé Caillet, the pair twist an MPB-tinged foundation into something that feels like a remix of itself. “Me Pega,” meanwhile, taps into Sarro, a new tech-house sound from Santa Catarina twisted by PPJ’s sultry deadpan and Nikki Nair-like bounce. Its lyric, “Grab me,” is more invitation than command.
There are the tracks guided by Páula’s storytelling, such as “Tem Carnival”, a thunderous track about the Rio carnival, or “Sexy Doce”, which crosses rugged electroclash melodies.
“I was inspired by Budots, which is dance music from the streets in the Philippines,” Povoa explains. “Then we mixed it with Páula’s Brazilian vocals. Baile funk is similarly from the streets, so there is a connection.”
2025 has been a whirlwind for PPJ, one that has continued their rise as one of electronic music’s most original acts, artists who can ignite a club in Berlin, São Paulo, Manila or Marseille with equal electricity. As for 2026, their world only becomes wilder, stranger, and freer.
and then 