John Maus: We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

Label: Ribbon Music

John Maus is surely the only philosophy professor to have ever served time in Ariel Pink's band. How's that for an opening? It's not just loose trivia talk either, these things will help give you an idea of where Maus is coming from: darkly cool synth-pop with cavernously reverbed vocals (and long album titles such as We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves). "Quantum Leap" comes on strong with its maniacally arch-goth synth line, and then Maus's vocals -- you've got to be serious to pull off that low, post-Factory Records kind of croon. Yet even though Maus's style could be dismissed with a few trendy signifiers (synth-pop is kind of in right now, if you hadn't noticed), the music itself refuses to be simply a genre exercise. Maus's real trick is balancing the partly sunny lightness of his melodies and beats with that incredible chocolate-textured voice of his. "And the rain came down / Down down down" he sings on "...And the Rain," which might be the most strangely non-downer tune masquerading as a downer tune we've heard in ages. If these descriptions are overly complex, don't worry that the music is too; Maus breathes life into so many done-to-death '80s new-wave moves here that you might be a little baffled, too. But the charms offered by glistening tunes like "The Crucifix" and "Matter of Fact" are their own reward.