Meet Maniac Maison: The Brussels trio turning jazz brains into synth-pop gold

Brussels-based three-piece Maniac Maison are making their grand entrance with New Museum, the lead single from their forthcoming self-titled debut album, out May 22 via Belgian DIY label Humpty Dumpty Records. The track arrives with a music video directed by Canek Zapata — and if this is the opening statement, we’re very much paying attention.

Watch: Maniac Maison – New Museum

→ Stream New Museum

Synths, Jazz Brains & A Basement Studio in Brussels

The Maniac Maison origin story is the kind you’d pitch as a film treatment. Berklee-trained jazz pianist and film composer Casimir Liberski had a hard drive full of hairy midi-based sketches and a vision to wrestle them into pop form. He brought in childhood friend and prog-pop auteur Lucien Fraipont (of Robbing Millions, Aksak Maboul, and Duid) and fellow Berklee alum and Japanese girlfriend Shoko Igarashi, and something genuinely strange and wonderful clicked into place.

The three first bonded properly during a serendipitous trip to Los Angeles in 2017 — each there for entirely separate reasons — where they found themselves folded into the Echo Park indie scene, spending time at the homes of Ariel Pink and Mac DeMarco, courtesy of Lucien’s well-connected producer Shags Chamberlain. The kind of hang you couldn’t engineer if you tried.

With Shoko and Casimir still based in New York and Lucien in Brussels, the planets didn’t fully align until they were all living in Belgium. In 2020, Casimir built a studio in the basement of an art déco house in Brussels’ Ixelles district — lockdown rolled in, and hundreds of songs followed. Ten made it to the finish line.

Jazz Backgrounds, Zero Jazz Orthodoxy

Don’t go in expecting a jazz record. Maniac Maison pull from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Belgian synth-pop legends Telex, vintage Japanese video game soundtracks, and Mozart in the same breath — with apparently zero anxiety about whether any of it is the “cool” thing to be doing. The result is a collective effort in the truest sense: each member brings a distinct musical personality, each holds an equal share of songs, and none of them seem particularly bothered about genre guardrails. That’s the good stuff.

‘Maniac Maison’ — Tracklisting

1. Les pantoufles
2. Dora neko
3. Jojo
4. Je travaille sur ma musique
5. Death companions
6. New museum
7. The lake
8. Winter memories
9. Avenues
10. Brutalist self portrait

‘Maniac Maison’ is out May 22, 2026 via Humpty Dumpty Records. Pre-order on Bandcamp. Catch them live at Les Nuits Botanique in Brussels on May 30.