Tibi Track IDs | November 2024
A curated selection of tracks for the month of November.
On the heels of the NYC Marathon last weekend, where waves of love were hurled at runners from the sidelines facilitating a strong and lasting sense of community, the city seems to be in high spirits. As an outsider looking in, I never quite realized the marathon’s gravity of meaning to the city of New York. It’s a brilliant way to kick-off the first weekend of November, a month of concrete-colored skies, the first half of which feels like Fall, as the back half beckons the call of Winter. No other city event brings together such a crowd, wholly inspired by a genuine love and support for one another - the NYC Marathon is a beautiful spectacle of life, and in a lot of ways, this playlist seeks to encapsulate that feeling.
We are all, whether consciously or unconsciously, prepping for the winter months to come, and although winter on the East Coast can, at times, be a beautiful time of year, more often than not it can also be grueling, dark, and cold. Could this mean, then, that November is about holding onto the light from its preceding months for as long as possible, being aware that it is fleeting and fading fast, making each moment extra special, and in consequence, simultaneously enhancing our gratitude? This is, after all, the month that houses Thanksgiving, a time of charity, family, and giving thanks. If you’re me, the Christmas tree goes up the day after Halloween, but I am well aware most people find this to be a heinous act, thus you won’t find any Christmas cheer on the track list just yet.
While plenty of leaves still hang on, many have fallen from their branches and perished, lying scattered and idle on the concrete, providing some natural color and cushioning to the typically hard and cold sidewalks of the city. The more that I extrapolate upon this concept, the more I begin to realize that November may more aptly be about this duality of light and dark, life and death, the yin and the yang. So, on this playlist you will find HVOB again, but there are also many new genres and artists hopping into the mix, ranging from the Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Lou Reed, to Maribou State, Pachanga Boys, and Juno Francis. Below I have singled out a few of the songs that I used as anchors, reference points, for the curation of the November track list at large and the reasons why - they are Glory Hallelujah, I’m Gonna Come Home Soon by Natalie Bergman, Thinking of a Place by War on Drugs, and 3 Days Later by Adam Ten and Rhye.
Natalie Bergman’s Glory Hallelujah, I’m Gonna Come Home Soon is my favorite song at the moment, probably receiving a minimum of five plays a day, conservatively estimated. My friend Elie played this track for me in Austin a few weeks ago and we weren’t even 10 seconds deep before I knew it was the track, emblematic of this specific moment in time. And yet, it also possesses a transcendent quality, able to dance in and out of both happy and sad or thrilling and dull seasons of life. Natalie, originally the sister half of brother/sister duo Wild Belle, released three incredible solo projects in 2021, culminating with Keep Those Teardrops From Falling, a four song EP and masterpiece of vulnerability and resilience. Pained by an undoubtably tragic family story, you can hear and sense the influence of Bergman’s experiences through her soft, perfectly pitched vocals as they provide an uplifting and heavenly balance to her sorrowful leaning prose. Bergman’s music acts as a sentimental reminder that on the flip side of every dark moment is one of light, and few songs are as perfectly fit for this season as hers. (As I write these contextual paragraphs about each song, I like to listen to the artist of reference concurrently, it helps to push the essence I want to communicate from my mind to the page, but I find myself stuck here, because I simply don’t want to stop listening to Natalie’s music).
There are two 10 minute plus tracks on the playlist this month, Time by Pachanga boys, an absolute classic journey of electronica, and Thinking of a Place by The War On Drugs, an incredibly instrumental but deeply lyrical voyage in contrast. The track is inherently defined by the symbiosis of tone from Granduciel’s Les Paul and Natchez’s keyboard, playing off each other, giving and taking, made whole by pockets of long enchanting solos nestled between verses throughout the story. This recurring theme of light and dark rears its head again:
I'm moving through the dark Of a long black night I'm looking at the moon And the light it shines
I feel as though this song evokes the action of dark brown leaves, too brittle and dry to hold onto their branches any longer, as they cascade toward the Earth, gracefully landing in small piles all around us. Although they are decidedly dead in their previous form, the leaves are reborn as soft and playful mounds for little kids to run and jump through, begging the question: could there actually be a bright side to everything always?
The last song from the November compilation is an Adam Ten edit of Rhye’s 3 Days, called 3 Days Later. Adam Ten is, in my admittedly young eyes, one of the most creative and inspiring live DJs/Musicians of the moment. Although I have been listening to Adam Ten for years now, it was not until this summer that I had the privilege of experiencing his work live at a Maccabi House event in Brooklyn where he played B2B with Mita Gami (clip above), both a close friend and co-founder of the aforementioned Tel-Aviv based record label. The set by the two Israeli DJs is one of, if not the best, sets I have ever heard - maybe it was the entrancingly spirited crowd, or maybe it was the summer weather and outdoor venue combination - in any case it was a euphoric experience that I will never forget, and it was closed out by none other than 3 Days Later. The song was at the time unreleased, but I was able to get my hands on the .wav file which held me over until its official release a couple of months ago. I chose this track for the November playlist partly because I just love it, but also because there is an ephemeral nature to it, brought out by the whimsical “ooh ooh oohs” of Rhye, that seem to correlate to that of summertime. Now that we are long past the days of summer, I thought this track, which is now a nostalgic reminder of that period of time, would be nice to hear when getting whipped by the winds of winter as the season forces its way into our lives.
When curating music for Tibi, whether in the context of runway shows, creative productions/projects, or our boutiques, it’s imperative to first nail down the story we’re telling or the message we want to convey. For the monthly playlists, my first move is to write down adjectives, phrases, and experiences that come to mind when thinking specifically about the month at hand, stream of consciousness from my mind to page. I go through this process in silence, as any music at this early stage will influence the mood I am in, proving to be more of a distraction than a productivity aid. This is not dissimilar to why you’ll find Amy and Traci donned in simple black when conceptualizing a new collection. A blank slate of sorts. Typically, I will have a couple songs in mind before even starting to dig, in this case they were Angie by the Rolling Stones and the aforementioned Natalie Bergman EP. From here the digging begins, and the WIP playlist becomes all I listen to, while on the subway, on a run, on a walk to the grocery store, everywhere. Truthfully, because music is one of those areas of art that has endless rabbit holes to dive down, it’s best to stop when I still crave more. Inevitably, there will always exist slight anxieties as I question how many tracks I should’ve included or those I didn’t think about or didn’t discover in time.
There is a Rick Rubin quote that applies here, which I try to remember in these moments: “Sometimes deciding a work is finished is more about surrender than victory”. My goal here was to facilitate a journey, using music as the medium, through light and dark, weaving in and out of that realm, ultimately concluding with a song that seamlessly embodies it all. To find out what that song is, you should give the playlist a listen. And like any chef that’s prepared a great tasting menu will attest, while one may explore the playlist in a shuffled format, I would suggest listening to the tracks in sequence from start to finish so as to hear the full story of November unfold.