Madeaux's dark and brazen bass-house is making an Impact

It must've been really daunting to be in the studio with someone like Deadmau5 so early on in your career.

Yeah, I had only been producing for two years at that point. I had just started the Madeaux project and was doing ambient r'n'b, so it wasn’t even their vibe at all. I remember I showed Deadmau5 something from Lapalux on Brainfeeder, and he was like “Yeah, that’s too weird for me.” and I was just like… "Oh, sorry!"

It's funny though, because in the beginning, you care so much about what other producers think. Now I don’t care at all. I’d rather ask someone at a party, “Can you dance to this?” Maybe it’s meant for an afterparty at 4 in the morning, or on the beach. When EDM blew up, the vibe element was lost. People started trying to make the hardest beat. Sure, you go to other producers for like, sound design advice. But it’s hard to go to people that aren’t going to appreciate it. I like talking to non-musicians more, because that’s how music is supposed to be heard.

Tell me about your relationship with Fool’s Gold and how that started.

A-Trak followed me on SoundCloud, I thought it was crazy, took a screenshot, put it on Twitter and he found me from there. He messaged me and said we should work on a track together. We ended up getting together in the studio and while we were working, I showed him a bunch of other music I was working on. Eventually, I released an EP on Fool's Gold.

On a technical level, he’s super focused on layering. Everything has a proper place and it sounds right. You probably just grow to hear things in a certain way. When we worked together, I was sort of like a technician at the keyboard and he was calling the shots. It was a little stressful, because he would be like “make a beat that sounds like this,” and I just had to do it. But I learned a lot that way.