The White Album — The Beatles (1968)
Thirty songs, four sides, and a band coming apart in separate rooms. The White Album is too long, out of control and impossible to tidy, and that's exactly why it rewards sitting through all ninety minutes.
A note from Rafi Mercer
"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. Where sound is treated with care — rooms designed for listening, systems tuned with intention, music given the time it deserves. Think of it as the Michelin Guide to Listening — if such a thing existed. A guide to cities, bars, and places to stay, chosen for how they sound. The rest is the map, and it's yours to explore." — Rafi Mercer, Founder.
The Latest Listening Venues Not To Be Missed.
More Reads From Tracks & Tales-
St. Lui, Christchurch — Side One, Across the Road
St. Lui is a new vinyl listening bar on Cashel Street, Christchurch, with a hi-fi system, acoustic panelling, a fire and full-album plays from the owners’ collection.
St. Lui, Christchurch — Side One, Across the Road
St. Lui is a new vinyl listening bar on Cashel Street, Christchurch, with a hi-fi system, acoustic panelling, a fire and full-album plays from the owners’ collection.
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DJ Bar Bridge Shinjuku — Tokyo
DJ Bar Bridge Shibuya is a tenth-floor DJ bar overlooking Shibuya Crossing, with a Rey Audio sound system, long-running resident DJs, a ¥1,000 door and hours of 8pm–5am.
DJ Bar Bridge Shinjuku — Tokyo
DJ Bar Bridge Shibuya is a tenth-floor DJ bar overlooking Shibuya Crossing, with a Rey Audio sound system, long-running resident DJs, a ¥1,000 door and hours of 8pm–5am.
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Maru Hi-Fi, Newcastle — The Quiet Door on Union...
Maru Hi-Fi is a jazz kissa-inspired listening bar in Newcastle West, NSW, with a 10,000-record collection, Tannoy Westminster speakers, live jazz and BYO Records nights.
Maru Hi-Fi, Newcastle — The Quiet Door on Union...
Maru Hi-Fi is a jazz kissa-inspired listening bar in Newcastle West, NSW, with a 10,000-record collection, Tannoy Westminster speakers, live jazz and BYO Records nights.
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Hi-Fi Disco Bar Chaos — Maruyamacho's Permissio...
Maruyamacho climbs. Walk west out of Shibuya and the ground lifts you through a district that has spent decades in the business of discretion, love hotels shoulder to shoulder, their...
Hi-Fi Disco Bar Chaos — Maruyamacho's Permissio...
Maruyamacho climbs. Walk west out of Shibuya and the ground lifts you through a district that has spent decades in the business of discretion, love hotels shoulder to shoulder, their...
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Stylus Soundlounge — Charlotte, North Carolina
Stylus Soundlounge in Charlotte, NC — a disco-noir listening room at The Pass built around a collector's vintage analogue system, with Host Selectors Wednesday to Saturday. A Tracks & Tales...
Stylus Soundlounge — Charlotte, North Carolina
Stylus Soundlounge in Charlotte, NC — a disco-noir listening room at The Pass built around a collector's vintage analogue system, with Host Selectors Wednesday to Saturday. A Tracks & Tales...
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Bonsai HiFi — Cali, Colombia
Bonsai HiFi is a small bar de escucha on Calle 2 in Cali, Colombia — vinyl, deep house and melodic techno in the world's salsa capital. A Tracks & Tales...
Bonsai HiFi — Cali, Colombia
Bonsai HiFi is a small bar de escucha on Calle 2 in Cali, Colombia — vinyl, deep house and melodic techno in the world's salsa capital. A Tracks & Tales...
TRACKS & TALES
The Luxury of Listening - A book by Rafi Mercer
This book doesn't tell you what to listen to. It teaches you how to listen again.
New orders ship daily worldwide.
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The Listening Club:
We traded our attention for convenience.
Endless playlists. Infinite skipping. Music became something that happens while we do something else.
The Listening Club is a quiet rebellion against that.
One album a month. All the way through. Together.
Founding membership is capped at 200 members worldwide. When the places are taken, this tier closes permanently.
Hello · Hallo · Bonjour · Ciao · Hola · Hallo · Olá · Hej · こんにちは · 你好
Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.
The Listening Albums, Innovation & Tradition.
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The 100 records that are worth your time
Most charts count arrivals. This one counts staying. A hundred records from the album reviews, ranked by the total time readers gave each one across a full year. Not views. Not clicks. Minutes.
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Blue Brazil — Various Artists (1994)
Blue Brazil wears the Blue Note logo but holds none of its sessions. Compiled by London DJ Joe Davis from EMI-Odeon's Brazilian vaults in 1994, it's a record built by selectors for rooms, and one that still fills them.
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Nightclubbing — Grace Jones (1981)
Grace Jones's Nightclubbing is remembered as one of the great album covers and heard far less often than it is seen. Take the image away and what's left is a rhythm section record built at Compass Point by Sly and Robbie, mixed for peopl...
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Dance, No One's Watching — Ezra Collective (2024)
Ezra Collective's third album was recorded at Abbey Road in the days after Notting Hill Carnival, with friends and family filling the studio so the band wouldn't have to play alone. Nineteen tracks, built as a single night out. A record ...
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Le Pas du Chat Noir — Anouar Brahem (2002)
Recorded eight weeks before the towers and released a year after, Le Pas du Chat Noir is a Tunisian oud player's chamber music for piano and accordion — the least likely trio in Europe, made at exactly the moment Europe stopped wanting t...
Worldwide Neighbourhood Guides.
At Home Listening, How & Why.
The Power of Going away.
By Rafi Mercer
What Sade understood about absence, trust, and the quiet courage to disappear.
The October 100 — Albums People Stayed With.
By Rafi Mercer
Not the loudest records, nor the fastest risers, but the albums readers returned to with intent this October— a chart shaped by curiosity, slow listening, and the quiet pull of lasting sound.
The Daily Journal. Discover More.
More Reads From Tracks & Tales-
Eleven, Then Fifteen
A Swedish newspaper asked how Tracks & Tales began. Somewhere in the answers I wrote that the Listening Club had members in eleven countries. It's fifteen now, and the membership...
Eleven, Then Fifteen
A Swedish newspaper asked how Tracks & Tales began. Somewhere in the answers I wrote that the Listening Club had members in eleven countries. It's fifteen now, and the membership...
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Upside Down on the Label
An address label says very little until you reach the last line. The first copy of The Luxury of Listening is heading for Australia, with a handwritten note inside and...
Upside Down on the Label
An address label says very little until you reach the last line. The first copy of The Luxury of Listening is heading for Australia, with a handwritten note inside and...
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The Side Ends
When a record side ends, nobody decides for you what happens next. That small moment sits underneath four words, listen, read, look, watch, and an order that runs from the...
The Side Ends
When a record side ends, nobody decides for you what happens next. That small moment sits underneath four words, listen, read, look, watch, and an order that runs from the...
