Universal Music Australia John Maus Addendum Cd

Addendum is the sixth full length album by contrapuntal,synth-pop visionary and hysterical body John Maus. Incubatedalongside the tracks that solidified into last year s ScreenMemories album, Addendum presents Maus in morespontaneous mood. Whilst Screen Memories joined thechorus of trumpets sounding Revelation, Addendum findsMaus considering what comes after the end. It s a documentof an artist using broad brushstrokes, emboldened byirreverence, freed from the script and staring absurdity in theface. These twelve songs showcase John Maus as a musicianwho experiments with his creative instincts, who wants tosurprise himself in the act of making anew. With Addendum he sounds untamed, off the cuff and closer to the pulse.Originally conceived as a bonus album to accompany April2018 s career-retrospective boxset of albums to date,

Addendum once sequenced and subsequently mastered,stood up, spoke up and demanded a release in its own right.Some of the unexpected glee and lightness of touch thatcomes with accidental invention courses through this album asa result. Outer Space overspills with chiming fluorescence andpunchy drum machine programming. Dumpster Baby bewitches with its swaggering brevity and venturesomebassline. John s vocal has rarely sounded so melodious andunburdened as it s does on Episode , its dulcet tone allowingthe key refrain to dash away like a shooting star across a nightsky of echoed beats and wheeling, frosty synth lines.The hurtling, thrill-ride of Running Man and the decidedlydownbeat Mind The Droves channel a darker undercurrentpresent in Addendum too, one of isolation, paranoia andpersecution. Happy alone, no one can know me, or think thatthey know what I m all about repeats Maus across therestless drum pattern and guitar ambience of Privacy .Addendum s somewhat nightmarish world of burning fire, AK-47s and plutonium newborns is always neatly juxtaposed bythe buoyant nature of the instrumentation and lyrical wit. Thismakes the songs all the more unnerving and droll at times,whilst hinting at a grander conversation at play. Cultivatedfrom manic interludes, a rampant grasp of tonality and Maus emblematic beams of enveloping, celestial synth, Addendum sprouts forth like his very own Garden of Earthly Delights.

Closer inspection shows this dubious paradise populated by Mr Money Bags , Whitman, Price, Haddad , all those who rain on innocence , fools, princes and most resolutely theaforementioned Dumpster Baby . When you start to feel likeyou ve got a handle on this deranged other-world, Maus is athand to affirm that it s weirder than that .

Addendum concludes with two 8-track originated songs fromMaus dating back to 2003. These tracks finally fulfill their fateas the turning point and final word on Addendum , theyremind us that as time is passing ( I m getting older singsJohn, 15 years ago on 1987 ), we move only always forward because our forever is now ( I Want To Live ). So much morethan a collection of un-homed songs and outtakes,
Addendum proves how weird it can get when you look to thefuture with each rally of the second hand. An album as anafterthought, an afterthought as album.