(2018) John Maus - Addendum

Review: 
John Maus doesn’t want you to mistake his smarts for being pretentious. Sure, the cultishly adored synth-pop performer holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy and he isn’t afraid to expound on subjects like Freud, the Enlightenment, and Michel Foucault’s Theatrum Philosophicum in interviews that often read like thesis excerpts. But he also loves cartoons, preaches his admiration for pop music in its most accessible forms, and once explained, unsatisfyingly, that he unwittingly participated in an alt-right Adult Swim program because its creators also hated TED Talks. He’s weary of coming across as the Niles Crane of avant-garde music. For his last album, 2017’s Screen Memories he built his own modular synthesizers — the act of a truly devoted audiophile — only to dismiss the exercise as a waste, later on admitting that only “about half a dozen of only the most discerning ears would make out the difference.” 
Screen Memories caught Maus in an even dourer mood than usual, playing up the gloom in his deadpan voice with songs about battlefields, executions, and societal rot. It was as odd and indelible, even though it was a commonplace totem of 2017: the Trumpian despair album. It turns out that record’s apocalyptic imagery and stark mood didn’t capture the totality of Maus’ headspace at the time. Recorded during the same sessions as Screen Memories, and on those same homemade synths, its companion piece Addendum captures Maus at his most irreverent and unguarded. Artists of Maus’ intellect aren’t supposed to just fuck around—it’s assumed their work must contain layer after impenetrable layer of meaning. But as often as not on Addendum, it kinda feels like he’s just fucking around. 

Tracklist: 
01 - Outer Space.flac 
02 - Dumpster Baby.flac 
03 - Episode.flac 
04 - Drinking Song.flac 
05 - Figured It Out.flac 
06 - Middle Ages.flac 
07 - Mind The Droves.flac 
08 - Privacy.flac 
09 - Running Man.flac 
10 - Second Death.flac 
11 - 1987.flac 
12 - I Want To Live.flac 

Summary: 
Country: USA 
Genre: lo-fi, synth-pop