The Books put on a contest with the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2010 called ‘Book Odds’: "With the help of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong we chose eight audio samples from their vast library of sonic offerings, and four song titles from their record ‘The Way Out.’ Then we issued an open call to ‘make radio’—short audio stories including at least two of the samples, and named after one of the song titles."

http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/competitions/shortdocs/2010

I entered the contest with this, a sort of poem set to music. I did not win the contest.

A Cold Freezin’ Night (Contest Entry for The Books, 2010)

I don’t understand how I missed that I had already uploaded this song to SoundCloud under the title ‘Overcast Afternoon’ on the day that I made it in 2018. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://soundcloud.com/matthewmcvickar/overcast-saturday?in=matthewmcvickar/sets/original-music

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For several months I’ve had a song in my head, one that I thought I made, but I could not find it anywhere. Today I found it! I made this four years ago and I think it's pretty good.

I don’t remember exactly what I used to make this, but I’m fairly certain the underlying arpeggio is from an OP-1 and the backwards-sounding synth and the louder brassy one that comes in later are both from a Volca FM.

Wistful Pattern Skyward (2018-08-25)

Evian Christ’s ‘Salt Carousel’ Voice Sample Slowed Down

A track I made two years ago and didn’t upload for some reason. Featuring a sample from a tourist cave in Japan I recorded in 2006 and a rubber band on a styrofoam takeout box I recorded in 2022.

Stretch (2022-06-25)

I just returned from a ten-day visit to Hawaii with Lauren, where she grew up and where I lived for about seven years before moving to Portland two years ago.

Lauren’s family lives on the Kawai Nui Canal in Kailua on Oahu, so I got to enjoy this sunrise every morning.

Walking to the edge of the water one morning at low tide, I could hear clicking sounds. I left my recorder by the water while I ate breakfast and captured it better than I’d hoped.

I believe the clicking is a combination of water flowing through the rocks at the water's edge and crabs walking around.

You can hear the purring coo of zebra doves throughout the recording and passing traffic on the nearby Kalaheo Avenue bridge.

There is a loud splash at about 5:38; probably a fish jumping.

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Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 on the morning of October 25, 2015 in Kailua, HI.

Kawai Nui Canal at Low Tide

On July 6th, 2006, Jens Lekman announced on his blog that he would give away two tickets to the first annual Pitchfork Festival to who made a beat that replaced one he'd uploaded. I opened up my WAV editor, sampled some pen-on-desk percussion, a cymbal, a snare drum, and my own voice, and emailed the beat in. And I won.

Scroll to the middle of this page to see the contest announcement and the winners: http://www.jenslekman.com/talk2006.htm

I brought my friends Dean, Sarah, and Rita along to the festival. In the VIP section I met Jens very briefly, as well as four of my other heroes — Martin and Drew from Matmos and Paul and Nick from The Books. At the pre-party I drank my first Red Bull and went crazy dancing to Sunset Rubdown. I stood front-row for the Spoon show, during which the sun set. CSS and Diplo put on great shows in an incredibly crowded and sweaty tent. It was a blast.


Bababeat (Winning Contest Entry for Jens Lekman, 2006)

I was listening to Dark Sky’s song ‘Jjj’ and found myself singing the lyrics to The xx’s ‘Naive’ over it, so I threw them both into Ableton Live and in about 20 minutes I made a decent mashup.

The xx/Dark Sky — Naive/Jjj (Matthew McVickar’s Quick Mashup)

These are my favorite sounds and moments from songs released in 2018, isolated and arranged in alphabetical order by artist.

Follow along with the list of tracks and sound description here: http://matthewmcvickar.tumblr.com/post/181984287667/favorite-sounds-2018

Favorite Sounds of 2018

I really love the sound of low-bitrate call center hold music. The texture of the compression and distortion is so unique.

This is recorded from the speaker of my phone sitting on my desk into a voice recorder sitting an inch away when I called the healthcare.gov phone support this morning.

Low-quality Phone Hold Music (Healthcare.gov; November 27, 2019)

2019 Favorite Sounds [Part 1 of 4]

2019 Favorite Sounds [Part 2 of 4]

2019 Favorite Sounds [Part 4 of 4]

These are my favorite sounds and moments from songs released in 2019, isolated and arranged in alphabetical order by artist.

Follow along with the list of tracks and sound description here: https://matthewmcvickar.com/favorite-sounds-2019/

2019 Favorite Sounds [Part 3 of 4]

Favorite Sounds of 2019

BLACK LIVES MATTER • DEFUND THE POLICE • NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

This is a very silly remix/edit/bootleg of a popular song in which the lyric “Don’t start caring about me now” got lodged in my brain as sounding like “Don’t start, Karen!” because the name ‘Karen’ is in the air so much due to the rash of recordings of white people doing awful, racist things.

Matthew McVickar

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