John Maus (born February 23, 1980) is an American musician, composer, singer, and songwriter known for his baritone singing style and his use of vintage synthesizer sounds and Medieval church modes, a combination that often draws comparisons to 1980s goth-pop.

Maus' early influences included Nirvana, a-ha, Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, and composers of the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras.

The albums generally drew negative reviews upon release, and it was not until the success of his third, We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (2011), that he became more widely accepted as an outsider artist.

He says that on some of his songs, his intention is to investigate "forgotten" electronic palettes, harmonies that were historically associated with "the divine", and lyrics that follow certain social idioms to their "absurd conclusions".

[14] The earliest songs he could recall hearing was "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis, and after that, early MTV hits such as Starship's "We Built This City" (1985).

He said that he began playing an instrument "around 12 or 13" and remembered that "the [only] culture I was exposed to was what was coming through MTV, Top 40 radio and maybe a classic rock station or something like that.

Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" created "a fascination for musical details" for him, and when he got his first bass guitar, "I didn’t take any lessons or learn how to play it.

In 2003, Rosenberg signed to Animal Collective's Paw Tracks, and over the next few years, some of his early, self-released CD-Rs were widely distributed for the first time.

[21] Maus had also self-released CD-Rs of his work,[14] which he submitted to several labels, including Paw Tracks and Kill Rock Stars, but was rejected.

[16] Although Maus' first two official albums Songs (2006) and Love Is Real (2007) generally drew negative reviews upon release, he gradually built a cult following.

[24] After Love Is Real, Maus was awarded a scholarship to study political philosophy at the University of Hawaii, where he had a day job as a lecturer.

"[14] In a 2011 Pitchfork interview, Maus suggested that he was happy that music was increasingly becoming free to the public and that record stores were "coming to an end".

The remarks embroiled him in an online controversy, after which he tweeted a lengthy apology which clarified that he was referring to "the Megastores of the world", not "the small DIY record shops".

"[34] To support Screen Memories and Addendum, he embarked on his first solo tour with a live band, featuring his brother Joe Maus on bass, Minneapolis musician Luke Darger on keyboards, and Jonathan Thompson on drums.

On July 28, 2018, Joe Maus died hours before a planned show at the annual Cēsis Art Festival in Latvia.

[39] Since then, Maus has played occasional gigs, including a November 2021 performance at the music festival Substance in Los Angeles.

Maus had invited Ariel Pink to be his sound engineer for this performance, however, one of the festival promoters recommended against this out of fear of controversy.

In July 2023, George Clanton's ElectroniCON 2023 music festival removed Maus from their line up following complaints on social media and from other scheduled performers.

Maus donated portions of his cancellation fee to social justice charities and, in a subsequent statement, apologized for making "the ElectroniCON artists & fans feel unsafe".

The Guardian noted him as a "ferocious theoretician" who "pogos, head-bangs and gives vent to a succession of feral howls as he jack-knifes at the waist.

[34] He is also characterized "as much a professional existentialist as he is a synth-pop musician" and that "reading his interviews can make your cerebral cortex pulse with befuddlement.

[45] As he explains, "What I'm trying to do is appear as something else than the world as it stands ... Because I believe that’s what we all really want, to see one another and to be seen, and my particular wager is that the hysterical body is perhaps exemplary in its affirmation of that ... the sweat of blood is undeniable.

"[48] Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole dismissed Maus' philosophical writings as "a parody of post-structuralist social theory" and his music as "obviously some kind of art-school mindfuckery".

Although he rejects the label, Maus is recognized as a progenitor of the hypnagogic pop scene, a genre noted for its reliance on memory and nostalgia.

[11] His compositions tend to employ the use of particular modal scales previously associated with Renaissance and Medieval music, which he believes is often mistaken as an attempt to evoke the 1980s.

"[51] He adds: "For whatever reason, the pioneers of electronic music that came out of Sheffield and Manchester in the 1980s became interested in these ecclesiastical modes that, historically, were associated with the divine.

Maus responded that he was not aware of Joy Division until much later in his life and that any similarities are likely due to Curtis sharing "the same heroes as me, like Jim Morrison.

"[54][30] While some of his lyrics are reminiscent of political slogans, such as "Rights for Gays", he commented that his intention was to follow some social idioms "through to [their] absurd conclusions where interesting things are more likely to happen.

"[51] Asked about current events in a 2018 interview, Maus criticized the American left-wing as inferior to its European counterpart, saying that the former advances "ideas that are so quaint and old fashioned and inadequate to our situation.

[54][57] After a fan requested further explanation, he replied with an image of Edith Stein, a German-Jewish philosopher and Catholic nun who was executed by Nazis.