(This is totally awesome. Click through and listen. Love, Eric)

matthewmcvickar:

I tend to fixate on sounds and tones in songs and records. These are my favorite sounds from this year.

There are two ways to listen! Press play on the blue-and-grey SoundCloud player to hear all thirty-three sounds isolated and arranged alphabetically back-to-back, following along with the list below. Or press play on the players underneath each sound in the list to hear it by itself.

• Atlas Sound and Deerhunter – [various] 
  Short vocal loop Bradford Cox was obsessed with all year. 
  
  
• Balam Acab – Welcome 
  Cleverly panned and pitched-down shaker (I think). 
  
  
• Beyoncé – I Care 
  Insane vocal run that matches the guitar solo and then keeps going. 
  
  
• Blanck Mass – Raw Deal 
  Sample (I think) that comes in periodically and completely makes the song. 
  
  
• Blawan – Potchla Vee 
  Slow-down of the percussion sample into the beat. 
  
  
• Bon Iver – Wash. 
  Vocal cut-up and ping-pong. 
  
  
• Cass McCombs – Love Thine Enemy 
  Background sample and strange vocal effects. 
  
  
• Coldplay – Up with the Birds 
  Clipped, reverb’d vocal sample. 
  
  
• Cornershop – The Biro Pen 
  That drum solo! 
  
  
• Darkside – A1 
  ‘Wuhwuhwuhwuhwuh’ vocal cut-up. 
  
  
• Eleanor Friedberger – Inn of the Seventh Ray 
  Delay on ‘oh’ and ‘ray’. 
  
  
• Hooray for Earth – True Loves 
  Super shrill percussion element. 
  
  
• James Blake – A Case of You/Why Don’t You Call Me/You Know Your Youth 
  Latter two songs (and possibly more that I can’t find) use samples from the former. 
  
  
• Junior Boys – Banana Ripple 
  ‘Can you turn the, uh, click off?’ 
  
  
• matthewdavid – Like You Mean It 
  Vocal sample drop. 
  
  
• MMJ – Circuital 
  Delay on ‘circuital’. 
  
  
• Oneohtrix Point Never – Andro 
  Screams and bongos. 
  
  
• Panda Bear – Sheherazade 
  Barely audible King Tubby sample from the single and live versions that was otherwise entirely removed from the song on album (presumably for copyright concerns). 
  
  
• Radiohead – Codex 
  Thom’s vocal fade-in. 
  
  
• Rarebit – Slime Time Live 
  Claps with delay, claps without delay. 
  
  
• Shabazz Palaces – An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum 
  Time-stretched kids’ vocals. 
  
  
• Taragana Pyjarama – Ocean 
  Dog shaking its collar after coming out of the ocean. 
  
  
• The Antlers – Putting the Dog to Sleep 
  Auto-panned snare. 
  
  
• The Field – Burned Out 
  Cut-up vocals. 
  
  
• The Revival Hour – Run Away 
  Heavily delayed vocals. 
  
  
• The Throne – Lift Off 
  Beyoncé’s cut-up, delayed vocals. 
  
  
• The Throne – Made in America 
  Bit-crushed beep. 
  
  
• The Weeknd – House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls 
  Pitch-down transition from part one to part two. 
  
  
• Toro Y Moi – How I Know 
  Rising piano embellishment. 
  
  
• Tune-Yards – My Country 
  Stapler. 
  
  
• Tune-yards – Gangsta 
  Hard panning and cuts. 
  
  
• Washed Out – Before 
  Bit of vocal left in the sample. 
  
  
• Young Man – Nothing 
  Pitch-shifted ‘toh toh toh toh’ right before the verse starts. 
  
  

This was really fun to put together. Though a similar list has always lived in my head, I started keeping this particular list written down around the middle of the year. As you can probably tell, I very much like delay and vocal manipulation of any kind.