Seek by Makeup and Vanity Set (Review)
For more than 20 years, Matthew Pusti — aka, Makeup and Vanity Set — has been one of the shining lights of the synthwave/dreamwave scene thanks to his arpeggiated synths, hard-hitting beats, and distinctly cinematic style. Unlike some synthwave artists, though, who are content with replaying the same old ’80s-isms over and over again, Pusti has continually pushed his electronic music in different directions, as evidenced by his vast catalog. (I challenge you, for example, to compare 88:88 or Wilderness to Overpass, Monsutā, and DIGI-RES.)
But even by that measure, Seek stands out amongst Makeup and Vanity Set’s many, many releases.
Simply put, Pusti eschews anything in these nine songs that could possibly be categorized as “synthwave.” There’s nary an arpeggio or beat to be found in any one of Seek’s 90+ minutes. Instead, songs like “Gong-Ju,” “The Milk of Human Kindness,” and the title track are characterized by highly textural synth-work that’s best described in purely naturalistic terms (e.g., shimmering pools, drifting clouds, gentle rains) — a sensation that’s further enhanced by subtle field recordings that evoke Robert Rich’s “glurp.” Other sonic elements, like the sliced up vocal snippets on “Gong-Ju” or “Jong-Du”’s gently melancholy piano notes, occasionally make their presence known, but never so much as to distract or break the mood that Pusti’s creating.
Speaking of Robert Rich, he’s arguably the closest point of comparison here, and certainly more so than, say, Vangelis or John Carpenter. In particular, Seek possesses the same contemplative otherworldliness that the California-based producer explored on albums like 2019’s Tactile Ground and 2016’s What We Left Behind. As such, the album often feels like the distinct antithesis of the sound that Pusti has spent the last two decades developing and refining. So much so, in fact, that it’s a bit surprising that Seek was released as a Makeup and Vanity Set title in the first place. Make no mistake, though: Seek is certainly of a piece with Pusti’s aforementioned musical restlessness.
It’s always a little worrying when a long-favorited artist decides to blow up their sound and essentially abandon that which caught your ear in the first place. (See also Low’s Double Negative.) But sometimes when an artist does that, they reveal entirely new depths to their music, which is precisely what Pusti has done here.