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 La Gare / Le Gore in Paris — a former railway station where live jazz flows into deep electronic, creating one of the city’s most compelling listening experiences.
Discover La Gare / Le Gore in Paris — a former railway station where live jazz flows into deep electronic, creating one of the city’s most compelling listening experiences.
Bar Lis is a Hollywood rooftop venue where DJ-led programming and Riviera-inspired design create an energetic listening environment above Los Angeles. While more social than traditional listening bars, its curated...
Bar Lis is a Hollywood rooftop venue where DJ-led programming and Riviera-inspired design create an energetic listening environment above Los Angeles. While more social than traditional listening bars, its curated...
Monarch is a two-level nightclub in San Francisco’s SoMa district known for curated electronic music programming and carefully tuned sound systems. The venue combines an upstairs lounge for early-evening DJ...
Monarch is a two-level nightclub in San Francisco’s SoMa district known for curated electronic music programming and carefully tuned sound systems. The venue combines an upstairs lounge for early-evening DJ...
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.
The album that named itself after its own duration and asked you to stay for all of it. Global Communication's 76:14 is one of the great ambient records — warm, patient, and quietly transformative.
A cinematic exploration of Nicolas Jaar’s Space Is Only Noise — a record where silence, space, and sound reshape how we listen. Discover the album that redefined restraint.
A nylon-string guitar moves quietly through the room. On Vila, Fabiano do Nascimento shows how restraint, warmth, and space can transform a simple instrument into an entire atmosphere.
A graceful return from Dakar’s most elegant orchestra — Afro-Cuban guitars, warm horns and patient rhythms drifting through the night air.
A spiritual groove where Senegal meets reggae, soul and the night air By Rafi Mercer Some records feel like a crossroads. Different roads arrive from different directions — rhythms, histories, instruments, languages — and somehow they me...
A luminous acoustic masterpiece where Baaba Maal’s voice and gentle guitar rhythms capture the quiet landscapes of northern Senegal.
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 March — 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.
On kitchens, close friends, a good record, and the world not watching. An idea that might become something. Or might just be a Tuesday evening.
On kitchens, close friends, a good record, and the world not watching. An idea that might become something. Or might just be a Tuesday evening.
The first Album of the Month isn’t about ease — it’s about truth. Donald Byrd’s Places and Spaces becomes the starting point because it teaches you how to listen, without...
The first Album of the Month isn’t about ease — it’s about truth. Donald Byrd’s Places and Spaces becomes the starting point because it teaches you how to listen, without...
I’ve been thinking about how little space music is given now. Not just physically — but emotionally. Albums appear, are consumed, and disappear again. Reduced to singles. Folded into playlists....
I’ve been thinking about how little space music is given now. Not just physically — but emotionally. Albums appear, are consumed, and disappear again. Reduced to singles. Folded into playlists....
There is a corner of the room where the decks live. They have always lived there — cables coiled, crates stacked at an angle that only makes sense to me,...
There is a corner of the room where the decks live. They have always lived there — cables coiled, crates stacked at an angle that only makes sense to me,...
Rafi Mercer explains the thinking behind the Tracks & Tales Star — how we listen, choose, and award.
