There is obsessive fandom and then there is unguarded, shameless devotion. Mausspace is a place for the latter. Launched in October 2007 by three John Maus obsessives, the website is a message board and unofficial news source dedicated to the lo-fi pop eccentric, philosopher, and former Haunted Graffiti member. Prior to Maus' breakthrough record, last year's We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, fans would often happen upon the site while scouring the web for his demos, only to discover they actually were not alone in their respective Maus worship. Forum avatars boast such phrases as "MAUS IS REAL" and "MAUS FOR PRESIDENT". And the discourse surrounding his reverb-washed new wave recordings and lovably pretentious persona can be profoundly sincere. Mausspacers seem unanimously to deem Maus a visionary, and often on the board he has been called a spiritual hero. Casual onlookers might wonder if Maus is legitimately insane; Mausspacers say he is prophetically different.
All of which is to illustrate that Maus, currently a full-time Ph.D candidate residing in Minnesota, possesses a strange kind of magnetism, due in no small part to his relentless desire to push his music to physically and intellectually intense boundaries. This new, 16-track collection of rarities and unreleased cuts from 1999 to 2010 is filled with songs of murky romance marked by his deep, gothic, and expressive vocals. It's largely been made available in physical form for committed Maus fans-- an ironic reality considering Mausspacers have already heard the majority of the material, despite the fact that it's never been commercially released. All but two tracks have been available to download on the site.
Regardless, this remastered Collection of Rarities is intriguing beyond its archival purposes, as it traces the evolution of an artist over the course of 11 years. And the readily apparent aesthetic progression here-- from elaborate noise and abstraction to Maus' progressive embrace of songcraft at its most pure and potent-- also documents Maus' developing theories regarding "pop's true potential" to do something visceral and subversive with the genre. Though adventurous, Maus rejects experimentation for experimentation's sake, insisting instead that "it is our task as artists to make an intensive use of a major language." Last year, The W**ire contributor Adam Harper published a book on Maus, titled Heaven Is Real: John Maus and the Truth of Pop, which considered his works as "metapop" that offered commentary on pop itself. "Does Maus have something to teach us about arriving at the truth through personal musical expression?" Harper asks. "Has he really discovered Heaven-- and can he take us there?" That such a book even exists says a lot about Maus and the impression his music has made. It can be thoroughly confounding.
Collection of Rarities' earliest cuts are dissonant, exploratory, and slightly nonsensical. "Lost" feels like traveling through time-- anxious and cinematic with an indecipherable, superdramatic vocal line, and sharp, meandering keys that conjure the frantic feel of a horror film. The earliest track, 1999's "Fish With Broken Dreams", is suggestive of Maus' interest in classical music; the sounds of a miniature symphony orchestra filtered through a Xerox machine and pushed through the looking-glass. "I Don't Eat Human Beings" is a peculiar, new age atmospheric, where Maus sounds lost in his own head.
Maus may have moved on from the scattered structures of his early years, but, thematically, self-loathing is all over this collection, which comes off very much as the sound of a man tragically alone, working within the confines of his own shell, committing fully to each idea. "The Fear" is one of several meditations on inner-strife and anxiety, wherein Maus declares, "Motherfuck, the fear is back/ The fear is back, the fear is back." Meanwhile, "Angel of the Night" touches on his own personal dissatisfaction with his last LP and an ensuing breakdown. The sad earlier track "Big Dumb Man" strikes as even more personal, as Maus seems to unpack the quandary of an emotionally stunted intellectual, singing with an almost theatrically desperate inflection, "Big dumb man/ Is talking about logic," and "Big dumb man/ Cannot convey any emotion."
Several highlights feature production that simply sparkles, like 2007's radiant "All Aboard", the driving dance groove of 2010's "Castles in the Grave", or "North Star", which conjures a lonesome, late-night feeling of subtle disorientation. But the collection's two greatest achievements do what Maus has spent his career becoming great at: unadulterated new wave pop. "No Title (Molly)", which was also recently released on flexi-disc for Record Store Day, is a widescreen synth-pop sprawler, where Maus repeatedly sings romantic lines like, "I want you in my arms tonight." Much ink has been spilt on Maus' maniacal live performances, wherein he punches the sky, tears his hair, sweats, screams, pogos, and runs-in-place; the mechanized drum beat on "No Title (Molly)" is tailor made for Maus' on-stage energy expulsions.
And the same goes for "Bennington", the record's most melodic track, and one of the most earnest, comically distraught, and characteristically Maus anthems yet. The smart humor is rooted in just how emphatically committed Maus sounds to his own desperation on "Bennington". There is legitimate pain in his voice, as he plainly recounts a sole night spent with the college girl he'll dream of forever, but it's so exaggerated you can't help laughing a little, imagining Maus singing with his arms thrust to the reaches of the sky on each dramatic, downbeat synth rip. "I still love the girl from Bennington/ Even though I'll never see her eyes," Maus declares, repeatedly, following cosmic, wizardly oscillations, "I love those fucking eyes/ Those eyes don't leave my mind." When he finally reaches the song's frustrated end, his introspective, staccato-sung plea is cringe-inducing. The narrative is tragic and ridiculous, a profoundly lonely outsider anthem.
"Bennington" is one of Maus' most simple songs, but that doesn't make it any less cutting or human. The fact that Maus is open to interpretation makes him fascinating. An academic might discover the Harper book and enjoy puzzling through Maus' philosophical treatises. Enthusiasts of DIY production might gravitate toward the collection for its homemade warmth. An aesthete may marvel at his sublime synth washes, and how they pour over the emotive, baritone vocal lines. Some Mausspacers, meanwhile, are self-described "teeny bopper-esque" fanatics, approaching Maus like a capital-P Pop star, making Maus memes and monitoring his Twitter page and even transposing his face into pictures from the movie "Space Jam". And that's all fine. We "get" Maus as we choose.
