Topic: John Maus is back with not one but TWO NEW FUCKING ALBUMS. CHRIST.

[gout_pony]

The Combine is good, but the rest of Screen Memories just feels like nothing.

I think it's far more emptied out... but sometimes weirdly zen for all that.

Try to treat it like you did those Dougie scenes!

It definitely took quite a while to grow on me. It strikes me as a fair bit less anxious but more melancholy than previous works and engaging with politics in quite a different way. As one might tell I find it hard to verbalise what I love about Maus!

[sevendaughters]

I think Screen Memories is brilliant but a number of critics have encountered it and said...not much. That they had no thoughts. Anthony Fantano passed over it as if it was some CD-R of a local blues-rock trio that does a mix of originals and covers. It's quite austere and reined in. Less of the maniacal clashing of the 'high' sensibility of his training and education with the 'low' chasing of the pop sounds a la Deleuze that he has talked about in interviews, trying to do what Green Gartside did and get inside the pop machine and recode it with radical potential. It's mature and the production is softer and it comes as a whole, and I think that is off-putting to some when it comes to Maus. But I think some of the musical shifts are still executed like only he can, like the overspilling bars on 'Over Phantom' and the unexpectly great guitar rock in 'Find Out' (though when the synth takes over it becomes otherworldly!) and the strange choral undertones in 'Sensitive Recollections'.

[alan nagsworth]

Something that makes me laugh is that John came out recently saying that the whole experience of building his own synths for Screen Memories was a total waste of time, and that only about twelve people would be able to tell the difference. What a brilliant man.

[Dr Syntax Head]

This dude is ace. Thanks for recommending

[gout_pony]

Listened to Addendum today. The title's an honest one - it's definitely a scattershot affair, though I like the meaty bass lines and it's given me more ideas for obscure music videos!

[sevendaughters]

His Reddit AMA was probably his artistic highpoint of 2018 and I like Addendum (think the cover of 'Privacy' is just great).

[gout_pony]

Another potentially disturbing but maybe humorously thought-provoking video... this time for 'That Night':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGBYbOLAxy4

[gout_pony]

This is actually stone-cold heartbreaking, bless him

My wife left me about a week and a half ago, someone is moving all her stuff out of our house right now. On top of that, and I suppose more to the matter at hand, I have failed completely at my task of irrefutably bearing witness to the truth and it's determined irreconcilability with the untruth by way of music. The "hysterical body" has become something close to a lukewarm, always expected, clown show, while I've been unable to figure a way of achieving anything approaching the radical by moving toward the voice. Then there is the whole live sound fiasco... Don't even get me started on live sound configuration!

[sevendaughters]

that AMA is just so wild. he is really something.

some trollish figures dragged up a bunch of stuff his wife said on instagram about how John said she looked ugly in some outfit she was wearing and another about how she hated being stuck in rural Minnesota, couldn't tell if it was meant to be a joke or lighthearted, also both had been making fairly ominous statements about how marriage was a fucked institution (but more articulate/vague). also if you ever see the wedding photos (sorry, i have gone balls deep on Maus as a fan) they look fairly gloomy (though again, could be artistic temperament, who knows?).  either way it is sad.

just booked me accomo to see him in Leeds. seen him a bunch as karaoke Maus, not sure how i feel about band Maus, but beats the shit out of most.

[gout_pony]

I really should be working on my book more, but made another Maus video, this time for 'Mind the Droves':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74Ei7-H9rc

[hedgehog90]

I really should be working on my book more, but made another Maus video, this time for 'Mind the Droves':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V74Ei7-H9rc

This is great!

[gout_pony]

This is great!

Thank you! One of my better ones, I reckon!

[axel]

Very sad news re: John Maus, as his brother (and bass player) has died whilst on tour in Latvia.
Terrible stuff and i hope John is ok.
https://www.spin.com/2018/07/joseph-maus-john-maus-brother-and-bandmate-dead-at-30

[marquis_de_sad]

That's terrible.

[gout_pony]

That's sad to read. That's a really cute photo of them together.

[The Boston Crab]

This is such sad news. I'm gutted for him.

[Bazooka]

Absolutely terrible to hear, his wife left him recently also, fuck what a dark place to be in.

[Duckula]

Absolutely devastating news - I caught them over the summer and they were incredible live.

[sevendaughters]

met Joe a couple of times, real nice guy. ah man. glum over this.

[gout_pony]

The bass sound is what really lifts Screen Memories for me. He did a great job.

I've spent so much time listening carefully to the brothers' music while making my daft videos and especially focusing in on the bass line for the last two albums while editing.

[Johnny Textface]

Sad news. I enjoyed his bass playing immensely.

[gout_pony]

Not my best, but back in the John Maus video game (in an attempt to cheer myself up) with one for 'The Law':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUN54WgAoA&list=PLPDGDddbJL025yAJII6-grgvwizpPgzHb&index=30&t=0s

[gout_pony]

Right lads, I've put all my 10 John Maus music videos into what feels like an intuitively correctly ordered playlist!

I don't reckon I'll be doing another until he releases new music unless someone creates an animated version of Umezu's manga Fourteen, in which case I'll edit that to 'Outer Space', but until then this is a cap to a creative project that I think is probably more effectively/affectively of the cultural moment than all my academic work, stand-up, stories or music output to date - though I rather wish it weren't!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUN54WgAoA&list=PL3deRGDR19Wx_hMfiDYtgl1JSBDs5MZtD

Hope those of you this clicks with enjoy and take some strange comfort from it, honestly!

[alan nagsworth]

Ah yes I've been meaning to cop these for a while now but I always forget. Watching them through as we speak, they are very nicely put together.

[alan nagsworth]

Yeah, great stuff. "I Don't Eat Human Beings" in particular really stood out, but I enjoyed them all a lot. Solid word, mang.

[gout_pony]

Yeah, great stuff. "I Don't Eat Human Beings" in particular really stood out, but I enjoyed them all a lot. Solid word, mang.

Thank you nags! My favourite too!

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I'm just getting into John Maus and was going to start a thread about what a genius he is, but here I'll just bump this now-inappropriately-titled one again!

Not as a musical influence necessarily, but the artist he reminds me most of is Mark Hollis (RIP)

[gout_pony]

I said I wasn't going to do another one but I did one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b95tuaYEfjA&list=PL3deRGDR19Wx_hMfiDYtgl1JSBDs5MZtD

It has 'Get Your Own Back' style gunge in it courtesy of Jan Svankmajer!!

[gout_pony]

Maybe not wholly surprising idk... I'm still disappointed, mind... considering the nature of the rally and the fall-out, hard to defend as pure sociological detachment from Maus or a desire to accompany the more overly sketchy Ariel Pink.

https://www.vulture.com/2021/01/ariel-pink-john-maus-trump-supporters-capitol-rally.html

[Avril Lavigne]

Maybe not wholly surprising idk... I'm still disappointed, mind... considering the nature of the rally and the fall-out, hard to defend as pure sociological detachment from Maus or a desire to accompany the more overly sketchy Ariel Pink.

https://www.vulture.com/2021/01/ariel-pink-john-maus-trump-supporters-capitol-rally.html

Sad stuff, I've been an immense fan of both of them for like a decade and this news made for quite a personally disappointing start to the year. I also just read today that Ariel Pink has been dropped from his label. No idea how that's going to affect the album I pre-ordered which they had originally scheduled to release later this month :\