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
Discover Idle Hour Baltimore — a vinyl-led neighbourhood bar shaping the city's emerging listening culture through records, warmth, and late-night intent. Saved. Every future venue page will follow that format...
Discover Idle Hour Baltimore — a vinyl-led neighbourhood bar shaping the city's emerging listening culture through records, warmth, and late-night intent. Saved. Every future venue page will follow that format...
Kinyōbi is an emerging music-led restaurant and cultural venue in Copenhagen founded by creative director Will King-Smith. Through curated DJ programming, selector-led residencies, and music-focused hospitality concepts, it is developing...
Kinyōbi is an emerging music-led restaurant and cultural venue in Copenhagen founded by creative director Will King-Smith. Through curated DJ programming, selector-led residencies, and music-focused hospitality concepts, it is developing...
You arrive expecting a drink, a table, perhaps a little music in the background. And then, somewhere between the first and second record, something shifts. The Little Jerry doesn't separate...
You arrive expecting a drink, a table, perhaps a little music in the background. And then, somewhere between the first and second record, something shifts. The Little Jerry doesn't separate...
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.
Discover why Fred again..’s Actual Life became one of the defining emotional albums of modern electronic music — a warm, intimate soundtrack for fragmented modern life, memory, hope, and human connection.
Discover why Serge Gainsbourg's No. 4 still feels like the sound of France itself — a slow, intimate 1962 record filled with jazz, memory, atmosphere, and the emotional rhythm of another era.
The tape runs at the wrong speed, and somehow that becomes the truest thing about it. This is not the finished version of an artist — it is the moment just before that version is decided.
Music that doesn't arrive finished — it becomes · Tony Williams, Blue Note, and the record that changed the role of the drummer · A record still forming itself, sixty years later.
Discover Secret Life by Fred again.. and Brian Eno through a six-hour train journey — where motion, stillness, and sound blur into one immersive listening experience.
There is a small studio in Silver Spring, Maryland where two men arrived in September 1973 with $4,000, eight tracks, and something to say that the world wasn't ready to hear yet. They made one of the most quietly devastating records of ...
By Rafi Mercer
Listening is a quiet luxury. A reflection on why sharing music without expectation has become one of the most generous acts we can offer each other—and why attention now matters more than ever.
By Rafi Mercer
Not the loudest records, nor the fastest risers, but the albums readers returned to with intent this May — a chart shaped by curiosity, slow listening, and the quiet pull of lasting sound.
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.
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.
Discover how Tracks & Tales grew from a simple idea — two coffees, one record, and the belief that listening might still connect people across the world.
Discover how Tracks & Tales grew from a simple idea — two coffees, one record, and the belief that listening might still connect people across the world.
At four in the morning the world feels less convinced of itself. The noise drops away. Even the algorithms seem asleep for a few hours. And somewhere between darkness and...
At four in the morning the world feels less convinced of itself. The noise drops away. Even the algorithms seem asleep for a few hours. And somewhere between darkness and...
Discover a reflective moment in the journey of Tracks & Tales — where listening culture shifts from building something new to watching a global network quietly form.
Discover a reflective moment in the journey of Tracks & Tales — where listening culture shifts from building something new to watching a global network quietly form.
I asked twelve people if they wanted to come and listen to a record together. Not talk about it. Not review it. Just listen. Most of them thought they knew...
I asked twelve people if they wanted to come and listen to a record together. Not talk about it. Not review it. Just listen. Most of them thought they knew...
Rafi Mercer explains the thinking behind the Tracks & Tales Star — how we listen, choose, and award.
