John Maus

Onetime member of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, John Maus has built a strong oeuvre that shares similar intricacies with his former boss. But while Pink has always been happy as a ramshackle misfit, Maus has always expressed concern for maintaining a meticulous, nuanced vibe with his lo-fi, outsider pop. His third album, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, packages his surrealistic, yet often amusing, lyrical philosophies into succinct offerings of heavily concentrated reverb and arpeggiating synthesizers, all of which are bolstered by his booming baritone. His love for horror films doesn't go unnoticed ― the high-pitched vintage synth oscillations alone show a love for John Carpenter's dystopic soundtracks. So when the whispers of "ch-ch-ch-ch ha-ha-ha-ha" come in over the disco beat of "Keep Pushing On," you know it's not just you. His homage to Body Count's "Cop Killer" is hardly the headline-grabbing controversy that Ice-T got caught up in, instead using a gracious waltz time signature and blinkering synths to soften the still violent message. And if there was ever any doubt that Maus can't work on a more populist level, single "Believer," with its chugging rhythm, chiming bell synths and elevating chorus, is enough to convert just about anyone into a Maus-keteer.