88:88

Matthew Pusti has been making electronic music since the mid 90s. He came up through the old tracker scene, the same corner of the early internet that produced half the people worth knowing in this genre, and he’s been performing as Makeup and Vanity Set in a ski mask since 2004. He rolls around on the floor tangled in cables, screaming into a mic, drenched in sweat. He’s from Nashville. He’s got close to 50 releases on Bandcamp. And most people still have no idea who he is.

88:88 is the one that should change that.

It came out in 2012 as the companion to a short film with the same name, and it’s ten tracks that refuse to sit still in one category. There’s synth in it, sure, but there’s also chiptune, old Berlin school electronics, that John Carpenter score feeling, the hum of a VCR in a dark room. It’s a future imagined by the past, made by somebody who actually lived through both.

“A Glowing Light, A Promise” opens it with narration and this thick atmosphere you can almost feel on your skin. “The Cross” hits like a chase scene through a city that only exists in code. Then “Homecoming” comes in with Jasmin Kaset on vocals and suddenly the whole thing has a heartbeat.

What sets Pusti apart from the pack is restraint. A lot of people in this space crank everything to maximum neon. He knows when to pull back and let one line breathe across a few empty bars, when the quiet is louder than the drop. Somebody on Discogs said something like most synthwave albums have a couple great tracks and too much filler, but this one is a great listen all the way through. That’s exactly right. Not a wasted second on it.

If you know Pilotpriest, if you ever stayed up way too late playing something with the lights off because the soundtrack was too good to turn off, this is your next one.

https://makeupandvanityset.bandcamp.com/album/88-88