In 2025, two decades and seven albums into his career, American musician, composer, and academic John Maus will release his most transcendent work yet: 'Later Than You Think'. Arriving via his new label YOUNG, the album explores themes of grief, justice, rebirth, transformation, and spiritual warfare - coalescing into a work of confession and confrontation: an aural metaphysics where affect, intellect, and spirit converge in search of the beautiful, the truth and the real.

Written, produced, and recorded in the Ozarks of Southwest Missouri, 'Later Than You Think' spans 16 tracks and contains multitudes - the lush and the bare, the sacred and the profane, minimalist discipline and maximalist indulgence, counterpoint and simple pop harmony. At its core, the album reaffirms John Maus’ commitment to radical sincerity and emotional truth in an age of alienation. Powered by confrontation, faith and transformation - driven by the urgent belief that meaning still matters, and time is of the essence.

Holding a degree in experimental music from CalArts and a PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii, Maus has been dubbed a “philosopher pop star” and “analog futurist” for the way he merges academic rigor with lo-fi synth-pop aesthetics. His influence spans genres and generations—from UK grime icon Skepta, who sampled his track 'I’m Only Human', and Gen-Z rapper nettspend, to filmmaker Josh Safdie, actor Natasha Lyonne, and photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. His track 'Cop Killer' features in the 2025 film Friendship, underscoring his continued relevance across high and low culture.

With five previous albums under his belt - 'Songs' (2006), 'Love Is Real' (2007), 'We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of Ourselves' (2011), 'Screen Memories' (2017) and 'Addendum' (2018) - Maus has carved out a singular path where irony, grief, joy, and absurdity can coexist and gained a cult following along the way. On 'Later Than You Think' Maus doesn’t just return—he confronts, confesses, and transforms. The result is not only a career-defining work, but a rare artistic offering: one that dares to believe in meaning, beauty, and the possibility of transcendence

TRACK LISTING

1. Because We Built It
2. Disappears
3. Reconstruct Your Life
4. Shout
5. Came & Got
6. I Hate Antichrist
7. Theotokos
8. Let The Time Fly
9. Out Of Time
10. Tous Les Gens Qui Sont Ici Sont D’ici
11. Tonight
12. Let Me Through
13. Water
14. Pick Me Up
15. Losing Your Mind
16. Adorabo

John Maus lives in his birthplace of Austin, Minnesota. Whilst working towards his PhD in Political Science he also composes music that taps into melancholic fantasy and affirms that we are all truly alive. Questing synthesisers, tensely strung bass lines and chasing drum machines providing the perfect backdrop for John's deeply resonant reverb-drenched vocal. Born in the decade of synth pop and sharing his birthday with George Frideric Handel, John started making music when Nirvana posters went up on every teenager’s wall. It’s this curious conflux of influences that partially helps to describe John’s music. It’s a world where the Germs jam with Jerry Goldsmith, Cabaret Voltaire relocate to Eternia and Josquin des Prez writes a new score for RoboCop. The confrontation of punk, the fleeting poignancy of 80’s movie soundtracks, the insistent pulse of Moroder and the spirituality of Medieval and Baroque music all find salvation in John Maus.

After a spell working alongside Ariel Pink (whom Maus met whilst studying at Cal Arts in Los Angeles) and Gary War in Haunted Graffiti, 2006 saw the release of John’s debut album proper through Upset The Rhythm. It was a record permeated with aching memories; a perfect testimony to lost romance and longing. It’s awe-inspired follow-up ‘Love Is Real’ (released on UTR, 2007) proved a more cohesive listen in terms of focus and emotional depth. Like an apocalyptic journey through the nostalgic streets of a common hometown, deep into the recesses of the human heart, ‘Love Is Real’ still stands out as an impressive whole. Both albums made an impact which grew and grew during some quieter academic years for Maus in the Hawaiian heat, before he returned last year to the heavy snows of the Midwest to finish album number three, ‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’.

‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’ breaks new ground for Maus. The shirt pulling and air punching of his impassioned live performance is finally captured in all its frenzied appeal alongside a tender inner space. After stretching muscles with opener ‘Streetlight’, arpeggiators bubble up to new levels with ‘Quantum Leap’, a song full of dead zones, glancing slaps and oscillating solos. “Heart to heart, mind to mind, we are the ones who seem to travel through time,” intones Maus resolutely through the mist. John’s lyrics are as likely to touch upon themes of Cronenberg gore just as much as the musings of Jacques Rancière. It’s this no-brow approach that makes things interesting, casting Maus as a savant and allowing his music to startle us in ways whereby we open up to the unimaginable.

John’s preoccupation with truth, love and eternity are perfectly suited to this treatment as seen with “And The Rain’ and the softly cascading ‘Keep Pushing On’ .The songs are devastatingly catchy, saturated with keyboards and overflowing with Maus’ allegorical summons. The hypnotic fugue ‘We Can Break Through’ treads new territories into minimalism for Maus, seeing the phrase “Break through this” repeated almost like a mind control procedure scored by Bach and Suicide.

‘Pitiless Censors’ as an album displays a more delicate touch than its predecessors. ‘Hey Moon’ is John’s first duet, performed with Molly Nilsson, who originally wrote the song. It’s a serene and elegiac song, which subtly weaves an impression of nocturnal loneliness and romantic dreams. Closing track ‘Believer’ is equally evocative with its bells, choral soaring and echoing sentiment. Of course, a John Maus album wouldn’t be a John Maus album without the same anthemic genius and dark humour that we’ve seen previously with songs like ‘Maniac’ and ‘Rights For Gays’ and this new album finds its succour in ‘Cop Killer’. The eerie waltz-time offspring of Body Count’s controversial 90’s protest track, ‘Cop Killer’ is dystopian, bleak and ridiculous and in short, classic Maus.

Unlike the last two albums, Pitiless Censors looks towards the future in all its absurdity. It’s a record where promise takes the lead for the first time, providing a counterpoint to John’s default existential calling. The cover of Pitiless Censors depicts an airbrushed lighthouse, thrashed by wave after wave, bringing to mind Beckett’s quote "Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea." The everyday realm where our lives seem both familiar and equally strange is where John Maus resides. His surreal touch is disarming, opening our eyes to the reality outside the four walls. Perhaps we’re all like “the human being who finds himself in the locker” in ‘Head For The Country’ in that if we surprise ourselves and open the door we can let the light in despite the storm.

It has been six years since We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves appeared like a thunderbolt of maniacal energy and turned everyone’s heads around. After touring in support of the album, releasing a collection of rarities and unreleased tracks, Maus receded from the public spotlight, returning to his academic pursuits. Years later, after completing his doctorate in Political Philosophy, he began building his own modular synthesizers, etching the printed circuit boards, soldering components, and assembling panels, until he had an instrument that matched his vision.

His music is a highly mutable affair. Whilst often described as retro-futurist on behalf of the 80’s drum machines and synth sounds employed, John’s music is more personal than the nostalgic re-tread implied. He’s more interested in seeking cadence, through his love of Renaissance polyphony and the experimentation behind post punk. It’s an amalgamation of musical ideas as radical as its intent.

Screen Memories was written, recorded, and engineered by Maus over the last few years in his home in Minnesota, known genially as the Funny Farm. It’s a solitary place situated in the corn plains of the rural American Midwest. The landscape is as majestic as it is austere and inevitably some of the sub-zero winter temperatures creep into the songs, as do the buzzing wasps of summer.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: As soon as you get a load of synths, some electronic drums and a boatload of reverb in the mix, i'm pretty much game. What makes this even more appealing is that it sounds like it was recorded when I was 5-10. This is ace, retrotastic synth swells, twee percussives and echoes for days. What's not to love?

TRACK LISTING

1. The Combine
2. Teenage Witch
3. Touchdown
4. Walls Of Silence
5. Find Out
6. Decide Decide
7. Edge Of Forever
8. The People Are Missing
9. Pets
10. Sensitive Recollections
11. Over Phantom
12. Bombs Away

Ribbon Music releases, on behalf of John Maus, a sixteensong collection of music spanning eleven years of creative output, titled ’A Collection Of Rarities And Previously Unreleased Material’.

Of the sixteen songs showcased, five (‘This Is The Beat’, ‘Castles In The Grave’, ‘Bennington’, ‘My Hatred Is Magnificent’, and ‘No Title (Molly)’), have appeared on previous compilations. Most notably ‘No Title (Molly)’ was originally released on a flexi disc as part of Domino/Ribbon Music's Record Store Day release ‘Smugglers Way’.

Two songs (‘Angel Of The Night’ and ‘Lost’) have never been released on any format, nor across any media. The same cannot be said of the remaining nine songs, the majority of which initially appeared on ’Demos 2011’, a bundle of tracks originating from mausspace.com where they had been uploaded by their creator (John Maus) to be appreciated, if not reviewed, by those eager enough to search them out.

‘A Collection Of Rarities And Previously Unreleased Material’ has been entirely remixed and remastered and features artwork and design by Turner Prize winning artist Wolfgang Tillmans.