John Maus

Apart from his keyboard work with Animal Collective, Panda Bear, and Haunted Graffiti, John Maus—distinct from the Walker Brothers member of the same name—spent his time crafting secluded, experimental compositions that often baffled listeners. Influences ranging from David Bowie to Scott Walker and Joy Division informed his first effort, the bloated, warped, and unapologetically odd Songs from 2006, which drew near-universal disdain from critics. CMJ wrote, "It took this Ariel Pink cohort five years to write and record his debut album, and only five minutes to become more annoying than Ariel Pink." On the subject of Maus' singing, Drowned in Sound's Mike Diver observed that while some listeners "...will hear a little Nick Cave in it...others will hear a man crapping out of his mouth."

Even after absorbing such scathing notices, many of which he displayed on his MySpace profile for comic relief, Maus kept producing fresh work. Love Is Real, his follow-up, appeared via Upset the Rhythm in 2007. Four years afterward came We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, containing some of his most vigorous and layered recordings up to that point. A Collection of Rarities and Previously Unreleased Material arrived in 2012, gathering B-sides alongside unheard tracks spanning 1999 to 2010. His subsequent studio album was again tracked at home across several years, this time once he had completed a doctorate in political philosophy and constructed a personal modular synthesizer rig. Screen Memories surfaced in 2017. By then much of his earlier catalog had gone out of print, prompting Ribbon Music to issue the six-LP John Maus Boxset in spring 2018. The sixth disc in that collection was Addendum, issued the same year and also made available on its own.