A guide to cities, bars, experiences, and places to stay chosen for how they sound. “I started Tracks & Tales to answer a simple question: Where does music actually sound right? Not where it’s loudest. Not where it’s trendiest. But where sound is treated with care — rooms designed to listen, systems tuned with intention, and music given the time it deserves. Think of it as the Michelin Guide to Listening — if such a thing existed. I travel, listen, return, and write. The rest is the map you can now explore.” Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here. — Rafi Mercer, Founder of Tracks & Tales
London sits in the heart of southeastern Kentucky, surrounded by the rolling landscapes and wooded ridges that define the Appalachian region. Unlike its namesake across the Atlantic, this London is...
London sits in the heart of southeastern Kentucky, surrounded by the rolling landscapes and wooded ridges that define the Appalachian region. Unlike its namesake across the Atlantic, this London is...
Situated south of Richmond, Chester exists in a space between city and countryside, history and growth, movement and stillness. It is not a destination that shouts for attention. Instead, it...
Situated south of Richmond, Chester exists in a space between city and countryside, history and growth, movement and stillness. It is not a destination that shouts for attention. Instead, it...
There is a tendency to think of the San Francisco Bay Area through its biggest names. San Francisco. Oakland. San Jose. Yet between these better-known destinations lies a network of...
There is a tendency to think of the San Francisco Bay Area through its biggest names. San Francisco. Oakland. San Jose. Yet between these better-known destinations lies a network of...
Situated just south of Seattle, Burien occupies an interesting position. Close enough to one of America's great music cities to feel its influence, yet distinct enough to maintain its own...
Situated just south of Seattle, Burien occupies an interesting position. Close enough to one of America's great music cities to feel its influence, yet distinct enough to maintain its own...
Set in southwest Louisiana, between the Gulf Coast and the wide landscapes that stretch toward Texas, Lake Charles is a city shaped by water, industry, food, and a distinctly southern...
Set in southwest Louisiana, between the Gulf Coast and the wide landscapes that stretch toward Texas, Lake Charles is a city shaped by water, industry, food, and a distinctly southern...
Situated in the countryside of eastern North Carolina, a short drive from the expanding skyline of Charlotte, Marshville is a town whose character is built less on spectacle and more...
Situated in the countryside of eastern North Carolina, a short drive from the expanding skyline of Charlotte, Marshville is a town whose character is built less on spectacle and more...
To the north sits Oakland. Across the bay rises San Francisco. Silicon Valley lies further south. Yet San Leandro has never seemed particularly interested in competing with any of them....
To the north sits Oakland. Across the bay rises San Francisco. Silicon Valley lies further south. Yet San Leandro has never seemed particularly interested in competing with any of them....
To one side rise the dramatic peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. To the other stretches the vast basin landscape that leads towards the Great Salt Lake and the deserts beyond....
To one side rise the dramatic peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. To the other stretches the vast basin landscape that leads towards the Great Salt Lake and the deserts beyond....
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.
In 1966, Cannonball Adderley recorded a live album in a Hollywood studio with an open bar and an invited audience. The club on the sleeve didn't host the session. The music didn't notice. A deep listen to the record that turned adversity...
The first time I heard Lifeforms, I remember feeling less like I was listening to music and more like I had stumbled into an environment. There were sounds everywhere. Some close, some distant. Some familiar, some impossible to identify....
Laura Misch's second album trades the open sky of her debut for caves, quarries and coastlines — a record built from breath, stone, and the patience of deep time. It asks you to slow down, and means it.
I first heard Victorialand properly on an ordinary afternoon. No ceremony. No expectation. The sort of day where a record is chosen almost absent-mindedly, simply because it is there. What followed was not so much listening as drifting.
Saudade does not ask for your attention. It waits for it. Thievery Corporation's most cohesive and quietly ambitious album trades trip-hop for bossa nova, creating a world of longing, memory, and warm midnight air that only reveals itsel...
People know the track. Listeners know the album. Take Five may be one of the most recognisable pieces of jazz ever recorded, but the real adventure of Time Out begins elsewhere. Start with Blue Rondo à la Turk and a different record reve...
In 1987, CHANEL created its first watch for women: the PREMIÈRE, inspired by the codes of the House. Its octagonal case evokes the stopper of the N°5 perfume bottle. The original bracelet, interlaced with leather—like the chain of the iconic quilted bag—has been reinterpreted in chain, ceramic or velvet-finish ribbon versions. A timeless, feminine timepiece to slip on your wrist day and night.
By Rafi Mercer
What Sade understood about absence, trust, and the quiet courage to disappear.
By Rafi Mercer
Not the loudest records, nor the fastest risers, but the albums readers returned to with intent this June — a chart shaped by curiosity, slow listening, and the quiet pull of lasting sound.
There was a time when I thought progress looked like movement. More meetings. More plans. More ideas. More miles travelled. More things started. Like many people, I spent years believing...
There was a time when I thought progress looked like movement. More meetings. More plans. More ideas. More miles travelled. More things started. Like many people, I spent years believing...
A reflection on anticipation, vinyl records, and the quiet days before a listening session — when parcels, possibility, and the music itself are still making their way towards the room.
A reflection on anticipation, vinyl records, and the quiet days before a listening session — when parcels, possibility, and the music itself are still making their way towards the room.
Some numbers arrive quietly — on a Sunday, between other tasks — and only afterward do you understand what they mean. A reflection on building something simple, the long unglamorous...
Some numbers arrive quietly — on a Sunday, between other tasks — and only afterward do you understand what they mean. A reflection on building something simple, the long unglamorous...
A quiet reflection from Amsterdam Airport on why listening and hearing are not the same thing, and why attention may be the rarest gift we can offer one another.
A quiet reflection from Amsterdam Airport on why listening and hearing are not the same thing, and why attention may be the rarest gift we can offer one another.
Rafi Mercer explains the thinking behind the Tracks & Tales Star — how we listen, choose, and award.
