Justin Bieber to release duet album with Aussie singer Cody Simpson

Bieber and moustache attend party. Photograph: Luca Teuchmann/WireImage

Justin Bieber is to release a collaborative album with the 17-year-old pop singer Cody Simpson. Due out this year, the full-length was described by Simpson as a “smack bang” collection of duets.

Simpson told Tribute the two musicians began writing together “a couple months back”, after Bieber saw some of Simpson’s music clips on Instagram. Initially, it was just an experiment. “We went in and ended up being in the studio till six in the morning,” Simpson said. “[We] came out with a song, went in the next night and then ended up writing like 12 songs in seven days, working all night.”

In an interview with the Sydney Courier-Mail, Simpson said that the record will be out “by November”. “It [was] just us writing,” he claimed, and Simpson played all the guitars. “We were able to write some beautiful songs together, pretty acoustic-sounding ... It was a great experience.”

Simpson, who is from Australia, has released two albums since 2012. Although he hasn’t made much of an impact in the UK, 2013’s Surfers Paradise reached No 10 in America; he also toured with Bieber and performed on the US edition of Dancing With the Stars. “[Justin] is like a big brother [to me],” Simpson said earlier this year. “Obviously, we’re all young and he gets himself into some stuff sometimes. [But] he’s a person I’d go to for everything.”

In the past, Bieber has recorded one-off duets with R Kelly, Mariah Carey, Carly Rae Jepsen, Usher and others. But this is the first time the 20-year-old has hitched his wagon to someone else’s for an entire full-length. It comes as no surprise that Simpson is managed by Bieber’s consigliere, Scooter Braun, and now that Simpson has left his major label deal he is expected to sign with Braun’s School Boy Records.

In addition to their team-up, Bieber and Simpson are both said to be working on solo albums. Bieber’s last studio album was Believe, released more than two years ago. Journals, a recent collection of odds’n’sods, was considered a commercial flop.