The Peace That Earth Cannot Give

John Maus sounds like what would happen if Billy Mackenzie from The Associates and Scott Walker met in a disco in 1977, and fell deeply in love. They would get married in 1978, buy a little cottage in the country in 1980, and have a little kiddy in 1983.

For his first birthday, little John Maus (for that is what they would call him) would be given a top of the range Bontempi organ, with eight realistic voices, and startlingly accurate percussion sounds.

For four hours each day, little John Maus would be left with his Bontempi in a room in the cottage with no windows, painted black throughout, with only his parent’s record collection and gramophone for inspiration.

Each subsequent birthday until he was eleven, John Maus would be given a new, better Bontempi, and his time spent in the room would increase by two hours per day for each year that passed.

He would not be allowed to go to school – Billy and Scott would teach him everything he needed to know. He would not be allowed contact with any other children. He would only leave the cottage to get his Bontempi repaired.

When he was twelve, Billy and Scott would split up, citing irreconcilable artistic differences, and John Maus would go out into the world with his last Bontempi under one arm, and a head full of words and sounds and wonders.

After spending some time walking the earth, playing his songs wherever anyone would let him, John Maus would be spotted by a talent scout from the majors, and be taken into a small studio. He would record his songs in a day and when finished, he would leave, never to be seen again.

The tapes of his recordings would be thought lost shortly afterwards, when an unexplained fire would rip through the studio, only for them to resurface 10 years later under a floorboard in a black room in a cottage in the country, wrapped in a tea cloth that looked a bit like Jesus. They would be recognised as a work of some mystery and intrigue, and released to the world by Upset! The Rhythm, like a flock of colour blind doves.

These are two songs that would be from that lost and found album. There would be more here. You would get the album from here.

John Maus – Maniac

John Maus – The Peace That Earth Cannot Give





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