November was a hard month for me, even before my cat suddenly died. I was tearing into a series of complications and difficulties I had been carrying for years, from insomnia to childhood trauma to dental issues, and was busy, busy, busy at home and work. But no matter how rough the terrain, the soundtrack was spectacular. We went to some good gigs - Metric, Idles, Brix and the Extricated, Heaven 17. We were practising hard for our next gig, which suddenly turned into another gig in December after we played the November spot in the Cellar - the night the Cellar was saved in a crowdfunded frenzy which simmered through the day then exploded in the evening, as we played - I nipped upstairs to check the crowdfunder and it was done. Music was suddenly everywhere, consolation and commiseration, discovery and exploration.

November's compilation, The Light is Fading Fast, is a hard mix of peak and bleak:



Most of these tracks don't have videos or have videos of no great interest, so you can play it in another tab - your substitutions are Shit & Shine, who seem to be stuck in the "only full albums" phase of putting their stuff on Youtube, so I've put in something else that remixes some of their rhythms (or possibly another band with the same name as there seem to have been several) and The Victorian English Gentleman's Club where you have Impossible instead of Atchoo which is not the same but never mind sorted thanks timscience. Metric bookends the mix to soften the heartbreak. Oh, there was one video worth watching:



Hot Chip's One Pure Thought which, for a track that came out over ten years ago, really managed to capture the flavour of the moment, for me, at least.

ETA, I did a cover, too.