ANDREW BERMAN

By SCOTT SUGARMAN

year of college and was like, “Oh, that looks so fun. I want to do that!” And then [Madeaux] kind of split off because it was like, oh, sometimes you get tired of dance music. It’s a really rigid formula, and there’s not really much room for . . . not creativity, but structural differences.

What’s your approach to playing live?

AB: We use CDJs mostly. We’ve been trying to figure out how to come up with a more live show, maybe getting involved with the MPC and that kind of crowd, but at the same time, when we make our music, we’re making it on a laptop. If we do play something in, we’ll quantize it and make sure it all has the right velocity and power. Plus, a lot of people who say they have a live show—“live” is such a weird, vague term. I met Steve Duda after the Mau5hax thing. He was saying that the only thing “live” means is more of a possibility for error. I never thought about it like that [before]. You can appreciate when things are different each time. But in a general, bottom line way, that’s really what [playing live] means. Since you’re doing it there, it won’t sound the same. Which is good or bad, depending on what you prefer.

What’s your view on that?

AB: I haven’t seen a live show, like a rock show, in a while. It never really made a difference to me how it was made as much as the end result. Whether it’s being played live or it’s been made on a laptop or whatever, a song’s a song, and that’s all that matters to me. A lot of people now are really innovative about that stuff, and even though it’s electronic, they’ll still record parts themselves and do acoustic/electronic, crazy, innovative things. It’s just such a giant gray area now. Let’s say you hear a track— almost everything is electronic now because everything is recorded. It’s all in a computer. Plus, I feel like, at least with dance music, people go to have a party. It’s a different vibe than, I don’t know, going to see Depeche Mode and trying to connect with the lyrics and stuff.

When he’s not racing in a swim meet or composing a few lines for a poetry writing class, Tufts junior Andrew Berman spends his time crafting richly-textured electronic music for not one but two projects. As half of Shapes of Light, which also includes Tufts grad Nicolas Russo-Larsson, he’s dropped fat beats and warping, throbbing synth lines on crowds from the Crafts House to Electric Daisy Carnival in Miami. His solo venture Madeaux, the yin to SoL’s yang, sulks in washes of crystalline piano and manipulated vocals. Oh yeah, and he was also handpicked by electrohouse juggernaut deadmau5 to participate in the inaugural mau5hax production session earlier this year. Not bad for a guy who’s not even old enough to pop bottles in the very clubs he’s playing in. Check out our conversation about recording and performing electronic music below.

Considering that it’s really easy to make

electronic music as one person, and you guys are a duo, what’s your creative process like?

AB: Usually, we wind up doing something I’ve started. I think Nick is more interested in chord progressions— actually, that’s a bad way of putting it. It’s more about how people start a song. I always start with percussion ‘cause if you do all the percussion right and do all the rhythms, then you can just write anything. It’ll sound good because the drums sound good, and the track sounds good, usually. And then melodies come later. I think Nick’s more into writing the chord progression and then adding stuff from there.

I get that Shapes of Light is pretty mainstream electronic music. Do you guys have a sort of goal of being able to reach a lot of people with the music?

AB: I always wanted to play shows. In terms of mixing, you always listen on headphones and different speakers to get the perfect sound, but listening to stuff on huge speakers is so fun. Going to shows and concerts and stuff, it’s great. So I always wanted to play stuff like Ultra or EDC [Electric Daisy Carnival]. That’s finally happening, so that’s cool. The main goal of Shapes of Light, in particular, was always just to play giant shows. I’d seen the videos of Swedish House Mafia and stuff, and I was in senior year, freshman

Yeah, I feel that. I guess there’s a different expectation.

AB: Yeah. But it’s all good. Every music has its purpose, and nothing’s bad in that way. It’s just designed for different things.