10 Hours of Martha’s Vineyard Ocean Waves | Beach Ambience, Nature Sounds, Soft Beats & Relaxation

MVY Waves! Surf into ten hours of uninterrupted ocean waves, hints of 808, drifting sounds, wind, and a bird chilling amidst the dunes of Aquinnah. Mellow beats, ocean waves, nature, some distant human machines, and chords. Whether you're studying, working, reading, sleeping, or unwinding after a long day, this immersive ambient soundscape provides the perfect background soundtrack. No talking, no interruptions—just pure beach relaxation and meandering sounds. Ignore the World.

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So the backbone of this episode was recorded on the footpath, about 40 feet from the surf of Gay Head Town Beach (Moshup Beach) on Martha’s Vineyard. It was recorded last week (as of this episode’s release) while vacationing in my favorite place on Earth—with more episodes from MVY on the way (stay tuned).

Anyway, why is it “Gay Head Town Beach” when the town is Aquinnah? Shortest possible answer: the island was taken from the Wampanoag by settlers and, as with the United States mainland, the tribe was pushed further and further westward into a place we incorporated as “Gay Head.” The tribe had nowhere else to go but the sea... (And I know that ellipsis is doing a lot of work.)

So in 1997, by popular vote, residents changed the town name from Gay Head to Aquinnah, or “land under the hill,” which alludes to the clay cliffs and some of the taller elevations on the island. The cliffs really are remarkable—I’ve visited them almost every year of my life—they don’t get old.

But settler colonialism isn’t much of a chill ambient podcast subject, so I’ll save the bitter pills for more historically focussed channels. (Or consider surfing over to the Aquinnah Cultural Center.)

It’s summer after all (huzzah), so let’s wade into less heady waters. Something got stuck in my craw over vacation that I had to yank out. Have y’all ever pondered how musical artists sound more native in specific formats? (And forgive me if music folks already pondered this, I didn't look bc I don't want to get rid of what I've written so far.)

I’ll stick to what I know—90s-era hip-hop—to demonstrate. And it’s very Vineyard for me, as my obsession with hip-hop bloomed in the summers of the ’90s. So while I was folding T-shirts at Island Breeze or washing cars at Old Colony Service, I was making paychecks disappear at Aboveground Records (and Al’s Package Store, but that’s a different tale).

Cassette is easy: nothing sounds more cassette-native than DJ Shadow, Black Moon, or the Beastie Boys. The griminess of backpack and alternative hip-hop belongs in analog.

And while I'd put Raekwon in the vinyl format camp—he did release “the purple tape.” (which I purchased at the music store in Vineyard Haven—think it’s a paint store now.) Just slip “Glaciers of Ice” onto your turntable and you will understand why. Maybe just buy the purple tape and display it.

Definitely CD for CRU’s Da Dirty 30; a very solid project that plays best uninterrupted—while being able to exit tracks quickly to skip intros that didn’t age well. Also, one of the tracks, “Da Dirty 29,” pretends to be a damaged section of the physical media, complete with medium-specific error sounds. So if you play it on CD, you’ll hear skipping. Basically, it’s much easier to realize that the damaged sounds are an intentional artistic choice on CD.

On the cassette side of "Da Dirty 29" it plays as if the tape is being eaten to mush by grinding gears. Look, find some Gen X ******* and ask them how it felt when their favorite cassette started making a grinding sound. You could even drop a cherry on it with, “think of the film clenched in your teeth while the dentist has that nuke-cannon X-ray machine aimed an inch from your face.”

That was the sound of your favorite cassette dying.