Matthew McVickar

This is the ninth year running that I have collected my favorite sounds.

 🔊 Click here for the full post, with the list of songs, on my website.

To kick off a few lists collecting my journey in music in 2019, here’s a mix I made over the last few days. It’s exactly an hour long and features 27 songs I really liked from this year. It starts out measured, gets super dancey in the middle, and closes out quiet.

Tracklist:

Yu Su — The Ultimate Which Manages the World [Music from Memory]

Y La Bamba — Boca Llena [Tender Loving Empire]

MIKE — Memorial [10K]

Yuk. — Palawan [Leaving Records]

Body Meat — 2 Again [Self-released]

Koffee — Toast [Promised Land]

Blood Orange — Benzo [Domino]

Sudan Archives — Confessions [Stones Throw]

Brittany Howard — 13th Century Metal [ATO]

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi — Sudden Inspiration [Latency]

Benoît Pioulard — Meristem [Morr Music]

George Cory Todd — Icon (Amy Reid Remix) [Atlantic Rhythms]

박혜진 park hye jin — ABC [clipp.art]

Bella Boo — Tuesday [Studio Barnhus]

Robyn — Beach2k20 (Yaeji Remix) [Konichiwa]

Logic1000 — Precision [Sumac]

Tristan Arp — Facelift [Human Pitch]

Karima F — Two Eggs in a Hammock [Schloss]

DJ Plead — Salt and Pepper [Nervous Horizon]

Anz — Helps Your Two Hips Move [2 B Real]

India Jordan — Through Lacuna [Local Action]

Malibu — Camargue [UNO NYC]

Teen Daze — Spring [Flora]

Lightning Bug — October Song, Pt. II [Marbled Arm]

Helado Negro — Pais Nublado [RVNG Intl.]

James Place — Names [Umor Rex]

Sofie Birch — Begin Sync End [Seil]

‘Glide Control’ from the Tempest 2000 video game soundtrack (1994). (Produced by Alastair Lindsay, Ian Howe, Julian Hodgson, and Kevin Saville at Imagitec Design, Inc. for Atari)

I don’t remember how I got this CD, and I never played the game itself, but I must have listened to this soundtrack hundreds of times as a kid. I would have been around 10 years old when I got this CD, and it was the first electronic music I had ever heard.

I would put this particular song on repeat for hours while doing homework or reading, and I like to think this CD is a big reason why I ended up getting so into electronic music.

Listening today, as soon as the first song ‘Thermal Resolution’ started, I remembered I used it as the backing track when I did a devil sticks performance at a middle school talent show.

Duval Timothy — Blue Borough

Phil Collins — I’m Not Moving (Idjut Boys Edit)

Remember Born Gold? ‘Lawn Knives’ maybe, back when he was Gobble Gobble?

Cecil Frena put out a record last year called The Gridlock under his own name, and it’s very good. It’s loud and weird and busy and sad and joyful and obliquely personal, a song cycle about family and failure and growing up that makes room for songs about holding up a dog beauty salon and dancing in the aisle of an airplane.

I am a sucker for this stuff, these prolix, earnest, yelping ballads made with 47 instruments and twice that many Ableton tracks, theatrical and personal but not disturbing, loud but not too noisy, celebrations of life and its love and chaos.

I really enjoy the new Clairo album, but I couldn’t help but notice Rostam used the same sample at the beginning of this song (‘White Flag’) as he did at the beginning of Vampire Weekend’s ‘Hannah Hunt’ (from 2013).

Roza Terenzi — Rare High

Kelela’s contribution to last week’s Warp Records 30th anniversary takeover of NTS Radio is a mix of ambient tracks with her singing over them. It’s wonderful and I hope she makes it downloadable eventually.

A few great discoveries from listening to this mix, for which she thoughtfully provided a time-stamped track-list:

the beautifully textural ‘Underwater’ from Leila’s 1998 debut Like Weather

the soothing, huge-night-sky ‘Digital Dreams’ from Cliffdiver’s Slow Decline

the lush percussion and pads of ‘Barreras’ from Iury Lech’s 1990 rarity Musica Para el Fin de Los Cantos

Eris Drew’s new mixtape Raving Disco Breaks Vol. I is absolutely incredible, an hour and twelve minutes of nonstop joyful energy celebrating the marginalized voices that brought us dance music.

Get it on Bandcamp for cheap!

All profits go to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SLRP), which works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence.

Otis Redding — (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

Drake — Come Through (James Blake Remix)

Beastie Boys — Brass Monkey

KH — Question

Logic 1000 — Logic 1000 Please Forgive Me

Frank Ocean — Thinkin Bout You

I first heard ‘Wish I Could Create’ in 2007 on Julianna Barwick’s Má Fama session (sadly no longer downloadable), and I listened to it endlessly. It’s a pity it was never formally recorded and released.