As I write this out, I realize that next month will mark the two year anniversary of this project. A collection of 23 playlists comprised of 50+ hours of music that captures the evolution of our curatorial skill in its rawest form, all grounded in creative pragmatism. There is an inherent beauty in a project like this that could, at first glance, run contrary to what one might naturally perceive. As time goes on, it may seem as though the process of piecing these playlists together should become increasingly difficult. One might even be so inclined to believe that the good songs could run out, that the inspiration could dwindle, that the range of sound may even dissipate into sameness.

We are well-aware that 50 hours barely scratches even the thinnest of surfaces in relation to the impossibly large and unknowable amount of music that yearns to be appreciated. And thus CP Radio represents a creative endeavor that actually improves, innovates, and deepens with each passing day. No song has ever been repeated on our playlists, and no song ever shall. This is the main, and quite frankly, only clear creative constraint within which we work here, and within our limitations we tend to uncover the utmost freedoms.

Freedom in this context is illustrated by relinquishing our concern with what to listen for and where to look, as the answers to these questions are simple and monolexical. Everything and everywhere, respectively. No artist, no sound, no era is off-limits, for art is always advancing in all ways. There are endless references to this ethos throughout the 23 CP Radio playlists. From the latest set of songs, take Alex Kassian’s Leave Your Life - Lonely Hearts Mix that samples and reinterprates Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes. A quintessential track of the 1980s that will no doubt forever play an integral role in the American pop-culture made for now by Kassian’s seamless blend with his Leave Your Life track from 2023. Through his masterful ear and a lifetime behind the production board, Kassian’s mix achieves the precise and necessary fusion of creative pragmatism needed to land itself on 023.

In line with this 80s sound, we turn next to Falling by the Pender Street Steppers - a duo out of Vancouver, Canada. As our playlists are created to align with each month of the year, this track feels quite fitting for now. August signals the imminent end of summer, a confusing period when one grapples with the desire to live out the last days of warmth and sunlight whilst maintaining a stark, and contradictorily subconscious, awareness of the calendar’s push toward the holiday season. Throughout Falling you’ll hear quirky beeps and boops, the classic gated reverb sound of the ‘80s era, and vocal echos that together manufacture a sonic swirl effortlessly occupying a mind that likes to run.

There is a liminality to the limbo we sit in in August, and through the balance of the tracks on this curation our goal is to capture that feeling - Deep Sea by Tokyo Black Star does this well - but the aforementioned tracks are preferential to a transitional period, and not fully evocative of a desire to simmer in the sliver of summer that remains. Alas, Chloe Caillet and her ultimate sunnytimes track, DouDou, comes to the rescue. Chloe’s edit of the 1985 classic, Avèou Doudou, provides us with the proverbial green light to stay a little longer, get your hair wet, leave the sand under your nails, as the song sits on your shoulder whispering ‘don’t leave just yet, there is more peace and fun to be found’.

The decision to curate a playlist with considerable influence from 1980s did not arrive consciously, as I only came to this realization after writing the above. We could turn inward and try to come up with some deep psychological reasoning as to why it happened, but its more likely that the ‘80s just had really awesome music - so much so that it has made a lasting and inescapable mark on the artistry of today. CP Radio 023 is out and asking to be listened to, it can be found on Spotify and Apple Music. We hope you enjoy this months curation, it’s a good one to close out the season with, or if you’re me, to be inspired to hang on a little bit longer.

Last month I called June the door - the threshold between wanting the season and being inside it, the point where the mind stops leaning toward what comes next and lets the present catch up. Well. We’re through it now, and on the other side of that door is the long afternoon that is July: the heat at its full weight, the light stretched to its limit, the day so wide open it seems to stop moving altogether. June arrives. July stays. It is the one month that feels less like a passage than a plateau - a held note, a chord left ringing, a groove that has stopped needing to arrive, content to circle the same few bars until the circling itself becomes the place you meant to be. Which is a strange and quietly beautiful thing, because July is also the first month of the retreat. The solstice comes and goes in the last days of June, and from that moment the light begins, without announcing it, to pull back.

And so, in the way the best afternoons hold, underneath the warmth, a small ache you can’t quite name, the fullest part of summer is already carrying the faint outline of its own ending. That is the feeling I built this month’s curation around. Not the arrival of summer, and not yet its close. The middle. The sustain. The part where you stop counting the days because, for once, none of them seem to be in any hurry.

There’s something else new this month, and it isn’t a change in what CP Radio is so much as the next thing it was always going to become. For as long as this series has existed, it has lived in two places - the playlist, and these words. Now there’s a third. CP Radio is becoming a show. A room with turntables and an on-air light and a needle that goes down at the top of every transmission; the songs you’ve only listened to and read about, said out loud, in a voice, on camera. It won’t arrive all at once. It comes the way a broadcast finds its audience - one signal at a time, a new piece each week - with the full-length show still somewhere up ahead. Think of what’s coming over the next stretch as dispatches from a station that’s already on the air. You’ll recognize some of the songs below when they surface there. That’s on purpose.

But today, the first song I want to hand you for the month of July arrived the way the best ones always seem to - not from a search bar, but from a room. I heard “I, I, I” at Gabriela on a Friday night, put on by someone whose whole craft is knowing what should play next, and I had the luck of being there when it did. Only afterward did I learn who made it. The Osmonds - yes, those Osmonds, the wholesome Utah family act behind the “Love Me for a Reason” harmonies half of America owned on vinyl. What almost nobody remembers is that by 1979 the same brothers had walked straight onto the disco floor and cut a record called Steppin’ Out, and “I, I, I” is tucked into the back half of it: a genuine, unembarrassed boogie track, all four-on-the-floor pulse and slick falsetto. It’s the sound of a band remaking itself while most of the world had stopped paying attention. These are the same people who, seven years earlier, made “Crazy Horses” - a proper hard-rock stomp, heavy and howling, the kind of record that still makes people double-take when they find out who cut it. The Osmonds, it turns out, were always keeping something under the wholesomeness. This is what taste is for - not the songs everyone already agrees are good, but the ones sitting in plain sight that nobody thought to check. It rides, it grooves, it never once tries to impress you. Which is the whole July mood in a single track.

Deeper into the month there’s “Sunset Breaker,” the title track of a 2025 album by Mystic Jungle - the alias of Dario di Pace, a producer out of Naples who works in the orbit of Periodica Records, the label quietly turning the southern-Italian coastline into its own genre of dub-soaked, sun-drunk disco. The record almost didn’t happen; it was assembled over years, through studio closures and a string of different rooms, but you would never guess it, for what came out sounds like the most unhurried thing alive - a slow Mediterranean dub, half Sade and half warm salt air, a groove that hangs at the horizon and refuses to drop below it. That’s why it’s here, and why it sits near the bottom of the list, where the light goes gold. “Sunset Breaker” is that exact moment set to music - the day at its fullest, holding, right before it tips. Play it when the sun is low and let it do what the title promises.

And finally, there’s a track here whose words tell you one thing, but whose melody tells you the opposite. “Shoot You Down,” by the Stone Roses, off their 1989 debut - the album that handed a generation of British guitar bands their template. Whatever Ian Brown is murmuring, the song itself is a pure warm evening: John Squire’s guitar unspooling in slow, sunlit loops, the rhythm swaying easy and unhurried, the whole thing made for a long July dusk with the windows open and nowhere you have to be. It’s one of the most beautiful grooves on a record full of them - the kind of song that turns a hot, slow hour into something you want to hold onto. Don’t read the lyrics too closely. Just let it glow.

A few more, quickly - and two of them you’ll watch come to life on camera over the weeks ahead. “Oh Timbaland” is on this list because it sounds so completely like the city that just won something it had waited fifty-three years for; a New York record for a New York month, built, improbably, on the bones of the great Nina Simone. And “No Te Quiero Más,” by Los Dangers - 1960s Venezuelan surf rock, dug back up decades later and still dripping with the sunlight it was recorded in. All reverb, salt spray, and a farewell that, going by the sound alone, you’d swear was a love song. The title means “I don’t want you anymore”, but I never got the memo.

That’s the country this month - thirty-odd tracks, the whole map, up now. But if you take only the feeling, take this one: July is not going anywhere in a hurry, and neither should you. Find the low light. Let the groove ride. The afternoon is long on purpose.

For five years between 1975 and 1980, John Lennon mostly did not make music. He baked bread. He read. He stayed home in the Dakota with his son Sean, who had been born in October of ’75 - on Lennon’s own thirty-fifth birthday - and let the press and the industry and the myth of John Lennon carry on without him. By Lennon’s own account, and by those of the people closest to him, it was one of the happiest stretches of his adult life. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) is the song he wrote about it - a lullaby for a five-year-old, recorded for Double Fantasy and released in November of 1980, three weeks before Lennon was killed on the sidewalk outside the same building where he had spent those five years. It is the song that opens this month’s curation, and there is a long answer for why, but the short one is that it has been my favorite summer song for as long as I can remember.

Beautiful Boy has carried me through more than a few hard days, the kind where the floor tilts and you reach for the one thing you know will hold. I have never needed to understand why a lullaby written for a five-year-old is that thing. It is nostalgic without belonging to any particular memory. It is a song for a son, and for a father, and for a friend, and for anyone who has ever loved someone enough to be a little afraid of it. It moves the way a wave does in the seconds before it breaks - cautious, gathering, almost reluctant - and then folds over against a cliff-edged shore, all at once and gently at the same time. It is the feeling of salt and sand still in your hair hours after the water. It is the warm smell of wheat in a field and cherry trees in bloom drifting through a window you forgot you left open. It takes your past and your future and sets them down in the same place, and what is left over, the remainder of that equation, is presence. Just presence.

That, I think, is what Lennon found in those five years of bread and books and staying home - not a retreat from his life but the center of it. Every day in every way it’s getting better and better, he sings, and then, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. He had been the most famous man alive, and he traded the noise of it for an unrepeatable thing happening inside one apartment, between a father and his boy. The records and the press and the legend, it turned out, had only ever been the way of getting to that room. The boy was the part he did not want to miss. And that is the feeling of June to me - not the deep of summer, not the first thought of fall, just the open door of the season.

Switching grooves, there is a short film I have not been able to stop watching - The Shape of Paris, five minutes of the Canadian skateboarder Andy Anderson moving through the city, filmed by Brett Novak. I say skateboarding, but the word undersells what he does. Anderson skates in a style that reaches all the way back to the freestyle era of the sport and then somehow forward at the same time. The effect is less like tricks than like figure skating - if the rink were an entire city and the skater carried it under his feet wherever he went. He floats. He spins through a courtyard, carves a slow line around a fountain, turns a flight of museum steps into something graceful instead of reckless. Paris in the summer has rarely looked the way Novak frames it here. And running underneath all of it is the song I actually came here to tell you about - Gone Down the River, by Fletcher C Johnson - scoring the film so exactly that I had to go hunting for its name the moment it ended, a loose, loping folk thing that sounds like it was caught in a single take on somebody’s back porch, all warmth and no polish. The song is barely a story, more a wandering catalogue of strange and beautiful things a drifter has seen crossing the country coast to coast, none of it resolving, none of it building toward a chorus that would tidy it up and explain it.

The other track to slow down for is Mo Se B’ólá tán, by Dele Sosimi with The Estuary 21 and the British artist who records under the name Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. Sosimi is one of the great living Afrobeat musicians - he was the rhythm keyboardist in Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 from 1979 to 1986, then co-founded Positive Force with Femi Kuti and was the band’s musical director until 1994. The pedigree matters because Afrobeat is one of those forms where lineage is not a credit on a sleeve, it is an inheritance - knowledge passed from one player to another in the room, on the bandstand, in person. Mo Se B’ólá tán moves the way Sosimi moves - patiently, in layers, with the conviction that the groove is not building toward anything. The groove is the point.

On our way out, two more worthy of honorable mention: Stay a While, the Sister Sledge edit by The Revenge, sits second on the playlist on purpose - it is the song that opens the door right after Beautiful Boy closes it, gently, behind you. And Touch, by Levitation Room, a psychedelic rock band out of Los Angeles and the next Tibi Close Friends project. I will save the proper introduction for when that piece arrives but take this as the first warm signal of what is coming. There is energy on this curation, plenty, but the note underneath everything is weightlessness, the feeling of having shed something. A coat. A heaviness you forgot you were carrying. The brace you keep in your shoulders all winter long. July and August are still out there, hotter and slower - but that is later. June is the door. Stand in it.

p.s. tracks sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen - Secret Life, The Lie, and Dirt - Sid Simons, recorded live at 666 Studios and out now on every platform, the first time Tibi Close Friends has lived on the DSPs.

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Alas, we have entered the month of May, a time of year here in New York that rivals October for my favorite moment to experience life in the city. The air feels naked, weightless save for subtle breezes that serve as a reminder of your presence outdoors. As clouds no longer shield us from the sun, she now shines bright, showering us with her healing rays, giving life to all that can feel and are open to her warm embrace.

Possibly because of the light, pretty and succinct nature of its weather and ambiance, May feels like a month ripe for poetry, and in line with this sentiment, I wanted to share a beautiful piece by the Persian poet Rumi, called Guest House.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

In curating the playlist for this month, I realized that the music I have craved and resonated with has shifted as of late. No longer do the darker melodies and synths seem to hit the spot as they once did during the depths of the winter and early spring. Instead, I have gravitated toward more cheerful baselines, woodwind instrumentals, and guitar riffs of balmy tones, as light as the new air of May. These songs are representative of a soft hug, a gentle tickle on the nape of your neck if you will. In many ways this playlist is a guest house, full of many guests, mostly new, some old, mostly a joy, some a meanness, but each serving their purpose as a luminescent catalyst to reach momentary awareness.

As I write and consider the greater meaning to these curations, I also notice that the biggest influence and driver behind the selection this month is that aforementioned search for tracks that bring awareness - those songs that, when their melody and lyrics hit your ears, you are instantly brought back into place, the present moment of being, that feeling of your shoes on your feet and the ground beneath you - the ever living now. In retrospect, over the last few months, the playlists have been a bit of an attempt to provide an escape to the cold, harsh, and grey weather that had so prominently characterized the current moment that once was and is no longer. Now, instead of finding a way out through the music, I look to find a way to stay, here, in the pleasant comfort of the sun on my skin as I walk through pockets of her presence along the alleyways of SoHo.

One track that I believe encapsulates this feeling so essentially is Ya Aen Daly, by Najib Alhoush. The guy has a wild history - after being imprisoned by the Gaddafi regime for two years for not singing the dictator’s praises, he released an entire album in support of Gaddafi as a condition for his release. As he continued to reside in Libya, Alhoush was forced to retire from music until he moved to Egypt and eventually began his solo career. I came across this song at Tango, a wonderful small plates wine/cocktail bar in Antwerp, and it was the first to make it onto the May curation. How could you not love a little habibi funk in the sunshine to start off a beautiful day?

The next song I’d like to feature is Only You, by Evan Blix. I discovered Evan’s music a few months ago and immediately reached out to him. Not noly did I want him to know of the magic I heard in his voice, but I also knew he would be an incredible artist with which to collaborate for our Tibi Close Friends series. Hailing from Santa Barabara, CA, Evan has just started on a solo career journey after spending the last 3 years as the lead singer/pianist of his former band, Glenn Annie. He sounds like a vintage blend of Paul McCartney, Harry Nilsson, and the Beach Boys, grounded by the lyricism of Paul Simon. Personally, I can’t listen to Only You without goosebumps and the thought of a beautiful ocean side drive down the California coast. To say he is an artist to watch would be an understatement, and I can’t wait to see what we create together in the near future.

Finally, I would say the last highlight for CP Radio 008 is a song, but it’s really an artist, and his name is Milo Korbenski. His track, Booksmart Hunny, was recommended to me by my talented friend Chris, a.k.a. Brunello, a brilliant producer out of San Diego. Anytime Chris suggests a song, you listen, and of those he has sent my way, this one might be my favorite yet. Milo wears a mask, a Stetson hat, and a denim jacket as his Spotify bio plainly and simply reads, “In my dreams, I dream that I’m a driver at night. In the dark I see it, You’re a trick of the light”. Anonymous and somewhat ominous, Milo’s catelog of music is a gold mine of range and diversity in both prose and melody. Chris put it best, “He’s so good, it’s like a blend of Cage the Elephant and Mgmt.” While Booksmart Hunny and Witch in the Cut are the selected tracks for the May playlist and are a fantastic representation of that previously mentioned creative range, I implore you to go and dive into the wondrous rabbit hole that is Milo’s discography. Milo, if you’re reading this, we’d love to work with you.

Every song on this curation has a purpose, one that brings presence to the here and now, that provides a window into our minds at Tibi, and one that, as a consequence of being what we love and are listening to, is of genuine and intrinsic resonance with you all. *Disclaimer: this playlist is best listened to while basked in the morning sunshine with an espresso in one hand a croissant in the other.*

This playlist is one of our best, in my obviously unbiased opinion, and it hasn’t gotten enough love, so I’m going to write a bit as to why you should lend me your ears and give it a listen.

We are now at that point of the year, on the East Coast, where dew begins to appear on grass shards and flower petals in the early mornings, the sun finally finds the courage to breaks through the clouds, and strolls around the city are no longer characterized by icy and grey ring two tones, but instead by those of the fourth ring. Bright, bold, and blooming, but only if you look hard enough, as we haven’t reached the full throes of spring just yet. In anticipation for this wonderful season of life and color, I look to the music, per usual, to enhance the beautiful changes happening all around us.

This time of year is deeply inspiring and invigorating - one day I wake up and notice a few new leaves on the tree branch across the street, the next day a rose, the next a tulip, so on and so forth. I like the concept of seasons, they keep you on your toes throughout the year, they put you through ups and downs depending on your preference - they are in a way the essence of life. A seasonal transition is one of the greatest indications that we are alive, that time is moving forward. For me, in the depths of winter, it can begin to feel as though I am stuck, stagnant and sedentary in the dread of the cold, but as March falls upon us, I am again reminded of the constant progression that is time. I can start to run on the west side highway again without getting pummeled by wind sent in from the Hudson, what was a four layer outfit turns into just two, and with that the music in my ears follows suit. The past few months of Tibi Track IDs, whether by means of lyricism or instrumentals, have been mostly slower and darker - this March playlist indicates a shift to accommodate and align with that which is occurring in our environment, mentally and physically.

I think I first started listening to Beach House freshman year of high school. Their album, “Depression Cherry”, had just released and I have vivid memories walking throughout my day listening to “Space Song” over and over again. It has fallen to the back of my Spotify as the playlists on which it resides are from a different time, but every now and then I find myself in a moment where my mind tells me to find it and press play. There are a handful of songs that evoke a rush of emotion like “Space Song”, a rush that feels fitting for the month of March. A blend of synthesizers, strings, and organs work in tandem to create an uplifting, ethereal melody that at the onset, the first minute of the song, will explain everything I am trying to convey. The instrumental harmonies are just one piece of the puzzle, though, as the lyrics act to quite literally, and figuratively, allow everything to “fall back into place”. I like winter because it forces me to be conscious of and grateful for the blessing that is warmer weather, warmth that for me feels as though things are falling back into place - this is March, the beginning of new beginnings.

Another song I would like to highlight is “6 Degrees” - Tale of Us Remix, by Audiofly. I struggle to remember where I stumbled upon this track, but from the moment I did life seems to have gotten better. I was digging for music for an upcoming show, looking for a closing song in particular, and knew from the first 30 seconds that I had found exactly what I was seeking. I like to close out my sets on a happy note, one that is maybe a bit more sentimental than some of the other songs played throughout the night, achieved through a slower BPM and an isolated and graceful vocal that echoes, reverberates, and lingers in the air. “6 Degrees” is the kind of song that would work on a playlist at any time of the year, it is flexible and maleable, but I chose it to represent March because, similar to its functionality as a closing track to a dj set, I see it as a beautiful opportunity to close out the winter, and usher in the affectionate and tender emotions of a charming spring season.

I heard from a friend that they have been using our Tibi playlists for their dinner parties and intimate gatherings amongst loved ones, and it’s anecdotes like these that are why we create a playlist each month. These tracks are a look into Tibi, its people, what we are listening to and how we are feeling, and the privilege to create some sort of resonance with our followers through the medium of sound is one that is not lost on us. I’d love to hear more about how you use these playlists throughout your everyday life… and I hope you enjoy this March curation, it’s a deep and passionate one.

As many of you know, we have been working with Javier Peral for the last two and a half decades on curating the musical and audio component for our runway presentations. Seeing as our Fall 2025 show was be a private event, we decided to try something we have never done before - to create a custom track from scratch. Specialized runway tracks have been done before, by several historic brands, in collaboration with talented producers, but it is a tricky process with many moving parts that can be difficult, at times, to coordinate. Because there is an inherent relatability in sourcing music that already exists, one that can be deeply effective when harnessed in the right way for the collection at hand, creating something new can thus bring along some risk. Utilizing tracks from prolific artists can help to emphasize important creative aspects behind a collection and offer a link between the clothing and one’s nostalgia or memories through lyrics and sound. This is ultimately the goal of curating music for a runway show - to find a progression of sound and prose, that when combined, enhances the creative direction for the collection so that there is a deeper resonance with the viewer beyond just what meets the eye.

These aspects largely disappear from the fold when crafting an entirely new piece of music, but not completely. The big, multi-layered question is…how do we produce something entirely new, that no one has ever heard before, and yet still resonates with our core principles at Tibi, this Fall ‘25 collection, and consequently with our loyal customers, family, and friends? Therein lies the immensely fun creative challenge, one that I was extremely excited to take on, with Derek and Amy, for our Fall ‘25 presentation.

My first step in this process was to find an artist with which to partner and entrust this challenge - an artist that I felt confident would be able to take our creative direction and employ it, musically. Immediately I thought of Brunello (Chris Krawczyk), a wickedly smart and wildly talented producer out of San Diego who we featured as our second artist for the Tibi Close Friends content series. Chris is a creative pragmatist through and through - his unique sound is a culmination of inspiration from all aspects and phases of his life, not limited to a single genre or time period. More to this, Chris has carefully and thoughtfully honed his skills throughout his young career, having now reached that special point where one can afford to be (almost) reckless. Embracing risk and experimentation, but grounded in his confidence of who he is, this is what Tibi and our Fall 2025 collection is all about, so it was a natural link to have him produce this track.

We met with Chris at the beginning of January and presented him with a deck outlining the inspiration behind the collection. The details of the creative direction, the main color themes and vocabulary, the intimate design elements and from whence they came - literally everything possible. We talked at length about the influential role that Amy and Traci’s experience in the city of Antwerp played in designing the collection. A city rich in architectural and cultural heritage, yet modern in mindset and feel - a near perfect synergy of chill, modern, and classic. A city that doesn’t try to be small, it just is, and yet still maintains a tremendous depth and array of viewpoints and perspectives. A city where the classical elements of its storied history feel uniquely grounded, in a music context, by the modernity of a strong, techy bass-line. We sent Chris photos from our time in the city, sketches of the buildings, and tried to convey the feeling of walking through the historically rooted and stunningly beautiful elements of Antwerp that fill the small, cobblestone alleys throughout the city - with the goal being to somehow combine these elements of classical heritage with forward thinking and progression. This Fall collection is a display of high craftiness with masterful tailoring made whole by fabrications of the highest quality possible - I wanted Chris’ work, through the music, to be a manifestation of just that.

Over the course of a month we went back and forth, exchanging new sounds and ideas, honing in on those that resonated most deeply and emphasizing those most applicable to Tibi and our identity at this moment in time. We gave Chris creative direction that out of context may make no sense - direction like “less floating in space, more like a pool”, or “classical violin but really hard and frigid”. As is the norm for most creative collaborations between artists, where we started a month ago looks nothing like where we ultimately ended up. But, because we fully trusted in Chris’ creativity, knowing that he maintains the same first principles as we do, we were confident that through this partnership we would create a graceful piece of lasting work, capturing and cementing an integral moment in Tibi’s history, through sound, quite possibly my favorite creative medium.

I often joke around that a lot of my job consists of merging what I love and want to do creatively with that of the goals of Tibi, and then figuring out how to bring these ideas to life through the brand in a way that makes sense. Sometimes, like when I pitch hosting a sunrise rave at 666 Studios, it doesn’t work out. But, more often than not, if the brand alignment is there, and I can get the team to not just buy in, but truly care about the concept, magic happens. Brunello is an evolving, constantly improving force of creativity in the world of music, and someone I also consider a friend, which has made this project all the more special to be a part of. The Ballad of Sorghvliedt, the track that we created together, is a stunning piece named after a 16th century castle in Antwerp visited by Amy and Traci during their time there. I have been listening to it on repeat for the two weeks - I close my eyes and as the song flows through my headphones I am transported to a second world, one that is both heavenly in sound, and yet rooted in its identity.

We will be pressing a limited run of vinyl with Brunello’s 14 minute track that will pair with the launch of the collection next Fall, but the vinyl will, unfortunately (or fortunately), not be available to the public for purchase (vinyl is another one of those things I’ve been wanting to do forever that Tibi is now in a place to help facilitate). You can, however, find the track on our Tibi SoundCloud and in the campaign films, created by Derek, accompanying the collection.

A huge thank you is in order to Brunello for not just accepting, but embracing this project and absolutely killing it. And, of course, to our entire creative team at Tibi who helped to pull this project from our minds and into reality. I love what we created, so does Chris, and we hope you will love it too.

Expressing the feeling of a month through music, music that when it stands alone may not be immediately indicative of the month, but when paired next to others plays an integral role in the bigger story, is a fun and creatively stimulating process. A process that, for me, comes far more easily than the act of communicating the same feeling through words.

Sure, there are some months that are more clearly defined throughout the year, and thus easier to write about - like the months of December, March, or October for example. Some of this may be because of the seasonal transitions, in other cases it could be due to the prominence of popular holidays that time of year. And, actually, singling out a month to dive into on its own may not be that difficult, but as I write our fifth installation of Tibi’s monthly playlist project, it appears to be a growing creative challenge to truly figure out how to express the smaller, more nuanced differences between that of November, December, January, and now February. As with all creative challenges, when it may feel as though you’re in a rut, the best way out is ironically to just dig deeper. I want my writing here to act as an extension of the feelings evoked by the tracks I have selected - a conceptual piece of work to outline what February may represent, and why these songs are relevant in this context.

February is the shortest month of the year, but the days are growing longer relative to those of January. It’s the last month of winter, typically a snowy month, as the temperature conditions are just right, not too cold and not too warm. Life right now is a bit ephemeral, icy and bitterly grey. The thing is, though, I actually kind of like February - mentally I find it to be an encouraging month as we’ve passed through the darker depths of the tunnel that is winter, the skies are brighter for longer, and I can begin to see hope for the spring season on the horizon. Valentine’s day is also housed in the month of February - a holiday loved by some, loathed by others, and treated with indifference by most, the category I fall into. Oh, and NYFW is upon us. The streets of SoHo are crawling with beautiful and eccentric characters - models run from casting to casting, editors and journalists move from press appointment to appointment, and street photographers, hidden in plain sight, capture these moments in real time to be seen across social media around the world. So, there is a decent scent of creativity and life in the air, moodily colored by the steel skies, but accentuated because of the muted nature of the current environment.

The songs I’ve chosen cross a range of melodies and genres, but all together paint a pretty picture of February. Coming off of two weeks of curating a house music set for a show at Virgo in the East Village, I was eager and excited to explore new music, as in the time leading up to my sets, the music I listen to is purely geared toward the collection of songs I seek to play live. I then found myself crate digging through my Dad’s 1970s and ‘80s record collection, revisiting some of my favorite artists like Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan - music that just felt right, and paired perfectly with walks down my favorite cobblestone street, Crosby Street.

So, yes, there is some Dylan and S&G on this track-list, complete with their beautiful instrumentalism and prose which can certainly be a nice, calming aid this time of year - a way to get lost in the music. Where some tracks provide a stable melody and bassline element to let the mind wander, enter your own world, Dylan is one of those artists where, when listening, you enter his world - his voice and lyrics acting as the key for admittance. And while this is all well and good, needed at times, I of course wanted to make sure we covered our bases for range purposes. The more I listened to this playlist over the last couple weeks, the more it’s grown on me. At first, I am always a bit apprehensive, unsure if I am doing something well - I am most definitely my own worst critic. Lacking confidence in the decisions I’ve made coupled with being so immersed in the singular project at hand that it is difficult to view the work, a playlist in this case, with a fresh set of ears. Thus, right before we’re about to launch the playlist, I take a step back, stop listening and writing about it for a few days, and then I come back to it - with that break in time everything changes.

All of a sudden I can see things from a newly evolved perspective. It’s an interesting process that I have found helpful with writing too - I’ll write and outline the same thing for days, step away from it for a week, and then return to the work, re-reading the writing, aware of the overall, overarching concepts I wrote about, but the sentence structure, the verbiage, the way I pieced it together, not at all. I’ll think, at times, that someone else broke into my apartment and edited my work, and it’s the same thing with music, photography, and any other creative endeavor. The songs I originally wanted to highlight from this playlist are not the songs I am gravitating to today, the day of the release. And with that in mind, and the hindsight from pulling away from this mini project, the three tracks to shout out from this set of music, the songs I now realize guided my approach to this month all along are, This is How We Walk On the Moon, Wicked Game, and Happiest of all memorial days.

Jose Gonzalez’s This Is How We Walk On The Moon was a song that I have had in my Tibi Music Bank playlist for several months now, and when I building out this playlist, I knew it had a critical spot in the top quarter of the list which is the area meant to ease you into the set, starting with Enigma’s Sadness, paired with several other ethereally beautiful tracks, before flowing into Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, by way of Simon and Garfunkel. I actually can’t take credit for Wicked Game’s presence here, the track was recommended to me from a very creative friend off of an Instagram poll where I asked followers what songs feel the most like February - I received some really great responses, all applicable to the month in their own right, but there was something intrinsically special about Wicked Game and the way that Only Living Boy in New York glides into the immensely distinct guitar progression from James Calvin Wisely’s Stratocaster whammy. To round it out, as the playlist continues to proceed through a journey of sound, moving from classic artists/tracks like the Rolling Stone’s Heaven, picking up some pace with Nina Simone’s Sinnerman, we land on a song called Happiest of all memorial days. Echonomist, the Greek maestro behind the track, is a new addition to my music library after I just discovered him, unintentionally, at the grand opening of Unveiled underneath the William Vale hotel. Admittedly I am slightly embarrassed that it took me this long to find him, as his music touches on that perfectly sentimental blend of lyricism, melody, and a deep house bassline that ties it all together - a wonderfully appropriate sound for the month.

I worked hard at organizing the playlist this month, so that there was an intentful flow from top to bottom, progressing from genre to genre in a defined and yet frictionless way. The more I listen to it while I write this, the more I realize that it could be the best one yet, but that’s for you to judge - let me know what you think, give it a listen in order, or not, but in any case, I hope you enjoy this curation, from us at Tibi made especially for you.

It was 24 degrees this morning when I took my dog Cassius for his morning walk – he loves this weather. In fact, the colder the air, the happier he is, although my hands and nose strongly disagree with his sentiment. I speak frequently about weather when writing these contextual articles about our monthly playlists and I promise it’s not just to fill space or make small talk. I’d rather no talk than small talk, but I digress - the point here is that my surroundings, weather being one important element, have a huge influence on the music I want to listen to. The colder and harsher the environment, the softer, prettier, and more soothing the music I seek. This provides an interesting juxtaposition that doesn’t always ring true but certainly exists quite prominently in this framework. As the frigid air slowly freezes my fingers, I look to the music in my ears to offer warmth in the form of sound, counteracting the cold all around me. When it’s chilly and grey, it can also become quite easy to slip into an unhappy mood, especially when these are the fitting adjectives to portray your walk to the subway. Thus, a beautiful tune and message can help to lift the spirits, provide a nice distraction, and fend off the grumpy winter moods.

Because the holiday season is about peace, empathy, and congregation of loved ones, in the spirit of the latter mentioned characteristic, I reached out to friends, family, followers, and Tibi team members to discover new music, asking the simple question of “What song feels the most like December?”. I received some truly beautiful responses, gained new perspectives, and learned about many artists I was previously unfamiliar with. It is incredible to see just how varied peoples’ musical association with this time of year can be, and yet equally as similar when taking a step back and observing the correlated themes from a wider lens. The most prominent theme that pops up with everyone’s track submission is nostalgia and the fond, wholesome memories that their song evokes when they listen to it at this specific time of year.

I grew up celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah and so I have strong memories with a range of songs on both ends of the spectrum, from the Hebrew Rock of Ages (Maoz Tzur) to John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over). Happy Xmas is one of those tracks that mentally transports me to the same place whenever I hear it, giving goosebumps of course, and serving as a reminder to reflect, say thank you, and make sure the next hug I give is an extra-long one. Lennon’s prose is both inspirational and reminiscent, and as our world seems to maintain some very deep pockets of hate, I consistently find myself looking to Lennon for his incredibly simple, yet profound writing that pushes us to choose love, choose strength, and choose peace. The other, non-holiday song that I feel is deeply applicable to this season is Sinead O’Connor’s Drink Before the War - I promise it is purely coincidental that both of my shout-outs mention war. Drink Before the War most influentially came on my radar through the Peaky Blinders in season 2 episode 4. The cold and harsh settings of the show are fairly similar to the NYC streets this time of year, and walking around with this in your headphones, it’s easy to get lost in the track, while also aware of and leaning into the harsh reality of the season at hand.

I have a few additional songs to mention here - some made it onto the playlist, and some did not - they are tracks that were sent to me from some very special people across varying walks of life. Below are the song submissions accompanied by a little excerpt explaining the sentimental reasoning behind the selection.

Amy: Rocky Mountain High - John Denver

“Gabe, this song for me. Besides the words just being very meaningful, I think the end of the year is always about reflection. And nothing says cozy and December to me then snowcapped mountains.”

Elaine: All I Have to Do Is Dream - Tala moon

“This is a cover of one of the most well-known Everly Brothers’ songs – reminds me of my Dad who loved the Everly Brothers and came of age in this era alongside his hi-fi tinkering. Tala Moon has a beautiful voice, and I wish my Dad was still with me so I could share that someone loved the song as much as he did to do such a memorable cover of it …December is a time for memories and remembering things you wish you could do to set the intentions right for a new year.”

Frank: Naše První Vánoce - Karel Gott

“This song is called ‘Our first Christmas together’. The music is beautifully nostalgic. It takes me back to my growing up times and celebrating Christmas with a tree and gifts and celebrating Chanukah.”

Javier: Under Ice - Kate Bush

“There are a few special reasons behind the meaning of this song to me. I used the track on a Winter Solstice mix I created for Olana in the Hudson Valley during the first year of the pandemic. I feel it predates trip hop before it was even created, which makes it extra cool - whether it actually does, I am not totally sure. Under Ice is also haunting, yet romantic, and thus very evocative of the winter season.”

Ellis: Hip to Be Square - Huey Lewis & The News

“A song so catchy, most people probably don’t listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself.”

Noah: True Love Waits - Radiohead

“It’s super visceral, found the song in the middle of the winter in the Midwest during 2021 and it sounded like waiting through the winter for a lover to come around - tender, vulnerable, and so honest, and I think I needed it at the time. It feels like the world getting dark at 4 pm.”

Kennedy: For Emma - Bon Iver

“I guess it just reminds me of playing the album on my shitty Crosley, lighting a candle, and putting on my fairy lights to create a cozy cave during grey Texas winters. I also would play the entirety of this album on our antique, out of tune, piano with my family on holiday in Wisconsin. The piano, surrounded entirely by stone, sat next to stained glass windows, which did little to keep out the cold. I don't think I've listened to this song in any season except Winter - it reminds me of cold feet and being wrapped in a blanket, sleepy and quiet with nothing to do.”

As you can see, December is a very special month to a lot of people, for a multitude of reasons, that boil down to nostalgic feelings of warmth, love, family, and gratitude. It’s that time of year when conversations don’t just end with “Have a good day”, but also “Happy Holidays”, and a season when strangers seem to be just a little friendlier, cracking an extra smile here and there. I sought to encompass all of this through the music on the December playlist, and I hope you all enjoy listening. Part of what made this specific project so fun to curate was learning the personal sentiment behind songs submitted to me by friends, family, and Tibi team members - we would love to hear from our readers what tracks are extra special to them. As always, I suggest listening through in succession from top to bottom, but shuffle works great too.

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.