John Maus

Afterward, he became fascinated with the life and music of Syd Barrett, and recorded his own version of Barrett's 1970 song "Feel" from The Madcap Laughs.

John Maus (born February 23, 1980) is an American musician, composer, singer, and songwriter known for his baritone singing style and his use of vintage synthesizer sounds and Medieval church modes, a combination that often draws comparisons to 1980s goth-pop.

The earliest songs he could recall hearing was "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis, and after that, early MTV hits such as Starship's "We Built This City" (1985).

As a teenager, he listened mainly to Nirvana and Syd Barrett, performed in punk bands, and created music with his computer.

He said that he began playing an instrument "around 12 or 13" and remembered that "the [only] culture I was exposed to was what was coming through MTV, Top 40 radio and maybe a classic rock station or something like that. ... I lived out in a very small town, with no boutique record stores and no college kids."

Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" created "a fascination for musical details" for him, and when he got his first bass guitar, "I didn’t take any lessons or learn how to play it. I’d just kind of pluck on the bass and scream my heart out."

After Maus and Rosenberg became roommates, Maus recorded the material from his first album using a cassette multi-track recorder and an early 1990s synthesizer soundbank.

For a time, Maus was a member of the Haunted Graffiti stage band.

In 1998, he left his hometown of Austin, Minnesota to study experimental music at the California Institute of the Arts.

When he befriended and first worked alongside classmate Ariel Pink, he took a greater interest in pop music.

In 1998, Maus began his undergraduate in music composition at the California Institute of the Arts, by which time he had formed an appreciation for experimental music, such as the work of Michael Pisaro, as well as Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music.

When he befriended and began to work alongside classmate Ariel Pink (Ariel Rosenberg), he took a greater interest in pop music.

The first time he heard Rosenberg play was at a concert put up by students from the visual arts department.

He recalled thinking: "You know, Okay, maybe I’m not going to do experimental music anymore, because I was ... doing all of these performances like [Morton] Feldman and [John] Cage. ... I left that aside and took up pop as the best bet, largely because of my encounter there with Ariel, and the early work he was doing."

Rosenberg called Maus "arguably my best friend" and "my very first fan", and in turn, Maus called him "the zeitgeist embodied. He is the figure of this situation and of this time, of the cloud, of the spectacle gone online."

His early lo-fi recordings anticipated and inspired the late 2000s hypnagogic pop movement.

On stage, he is characterized for his intense displays of emotion while performing.

He is also a former teacher of philosophy at the University of Hawaii, where he later earned his PhD in political science.

Maus' early influences included Nirvana, Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, and composers of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras.

They collaborated on the title track of Rosenberg's Lover Boy (2002).

Maus said that Rosenberg made contributions to some of his own songs, but was not credited "because neither of us care enough about any 'official' credit."

He later completed his degree in experimental music composition in 2003.

In 2003, Rosenberg signed to Animal Collective's Paw Tracks, and over the next few years, some of his early, self-released CD-Rs were widely distributed for the first time.

Maus had also self-released CD-Rs of his work, which he submitted to several labels, including Paw Tracks and Kill Rock Stars, but was rejected.

Both Maus and Rosenberg backed Animal Collective's Panda Bear for his solo tour of Europe, where Maus served as keyboardist.

Sometimes Maus was also the opening act for these shows.

Eventually, after a performance in London, he encountered agents from Upset the Rhythm, who agreed to distribute his music.

By 2005, Maus had also taken about a year in "art criticism or something".

For two of his college years, he "couldn’t write a thing ... and it horrified me. ... Nothing did what I felt music ought to do. I had to feel like I’d started to get there, at least in my mind, before I could share it with people."

At his most "prolific", he could write only one song a month.

He produced most of the music from his first two albums Songs (2006) and Love Is Real (2007) on cassette tape with an early 1990s sound bank.

Although Maus' first two official albums Songs (2006) and Love Is Real (2007) generally drew negative reviews upon release, he gradually built a cult following.

After Love Is Real, Maus was awarded a scholarship to study political philosophy at the University of Hawaii, where he had a day job as a lecturer.

In the evenings, he continued working on music from his office.

The albums generally drew negative reviews upon release, and it was not until the success of his third, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (2011), that he became more widely accepted as an outsider artist.

His dissertation, "Communication and Control" (2014), discusses the influence of technology on social control.

Maus was born and raised in Austin, Minnesota and had a middle-class upbringing.

Following a five-year absence from public appearances and releasing new music, he returned in 2017 with the album Screen Memories.

Writings about Maus frequently link his music to his academic vocations, although Maus himself denies composing with an aesthetic or political theory in mind.

He says that on some of his songs, his intention is to investigate "forgotten" electronic palettes, harmonies that were historically associated with "the divine", and lyrics that follow certain social idioms to their "absurd conclusions".