The Mountain — Gorillaz (2026)
Recorded across two decades and eight countries, the ninth Gorillaz album is built around grief — and around voices that were already on tape when the people who made them were gone.
A note from Rafi Mercer
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
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-
Baroke Mumbai — One Floor Above a Road That Los...
Baroke in Grant Road is Mumbai's first vinyl-only listening bar — over 200 records, Klipsch La Scala II speakers, and no digital fallback. A Tracks & Tales venue listing.
Baroke Mumbai — One Floor Above a Road That Los...
Baroke in Grant Road is Mumbai's first vinyl-only listening bar — over 200 records, Klipsch La Scala II speakers, and no digital fallback. A Tracks & Tales venue listing.
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Dill Pickle Club: Vinyl, Reel-to-Reel, and Tasm...
Tooker Alley was a short lane off Dearborn Street in Chicago's Near North Side, and for most of the 1920s the loudest room on it was a converted stable where...
Dill Pickle Club: Vinyl, Reel-to-Reel, and Tasm...
Tooker Alley was a short lane off Dearborn Street in Chicago's Near North Side, and for most of the 1920s the loudest room on it was a converted stable where...
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The SoundBar OKC — A Living Room on Broadway
The SoundBar OKC — Oklahoma City's vinyl lounge on N Broadway Ave, with a serious sound system, drink-and-record pairings, and 12,000 albums to browse and buy.
The SoundBar OKC — A Living Room on Broadway
The SoundBar OKC — Oklahoma City's vinyl lounge on N Broadway Ave, with a serious sound system, drink-and-record pairings, and 12,000 albums to browse and buy.
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Memphis Listening Lab — The City That Gave Its ...
Memphis Listening Lab at Crosstown Concourse — a free public listening library with 75,000 recordings, a reference-grade SoundRoom, and regular listening events. The T&T guide to Memphis's civic listening room.
Memphis Listening Lab — The City That Gave Its ...
Memphis Listening Lab at Crosstown Concourse — a free public listening library with 75,000 recordings, a reference-grade SoundRoom, and regular listening events. The T&T guide to Memphis's civic listening room.
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Finer Sounds Brooklyn — Curated Vinyl & Hi-Fi S...
There is an old truth about record shops that the best ones have always understood: the shop is not really selling records. It is selling the moment before ownership —...
Finer Sounds Brooklyn — Curated Vinyl & Hi-Fi S...
There is an old truth about record shops that the best ones have always understood: the shop is not really selling records. It is selling the moment before ownership —...
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Futura Listening Bar — Milan, Canal-Side Vinyl,...
There are certain corners of Milan where the city seems to exhale. The pace softens. The sharp lines of business, fashion and commerce loosen into something more conversational.
Futura Listening Bar — Milan, Canal-Side Vinyl,...
There are certain corners of Milan where the city seems to exhale. The pace softens. The sharp lines of business, fashion and commerce loosen into something more conversational.
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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Muchacho — Phosphorescent (2013)
Phosphorescent's Muchacho (2013) was written in an off-grid hut in Tulum after Matthew Houck lost his home, his relationship and his studio. Its centrepiece, "Song for Zula", holds four chords for six minutes without a chorus — a record ...
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Astral Weeks — Van Morrison (1968)
Three afternoons at Century Sound in 1968, a group of jazz musicians who had never heard the songs, and a twenty-three-year-old in an isolation booth who barely spoke to them. What came out was a record about a Belfast street, made four ...
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Kid A — Radiohead (2000) - It was left alone...
Radiohead followed the guitar record of the decade by putting the guitars down — a Rhodes piano, an instrument invented in 1928 that almost nobody plays, and a hole in the middle of the album where nothing happens at all. It was called c...
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Paul's Boutique — Beastie Boys (1989)
The Beastie Boys had every reason to repeat themselves and chose instead to dismantle the version of themselves that worked. Paul's Boutique is what happened next: over a hundred records playing at once, a jazz drummer from New Orleans h...
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Back to the World — Curtis Mayfield (1973)
In Vietnam, "the World" meant home. Curtis Mayfield released Back to the World in May 1973, weeks after the last men came back — and wrote not about the war but about the arrival. Plush strings, congas, and the bleakest lyrics in America...
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 September 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 September— a chart shaped by curiosity, slow listening, and the quiet pull of lasting sound.
The Daily Journal. Discover More.
More Reads From Tracks & Tales-
Records In, Books Out
The records for the sessions arrive in stiff cardboard built to survive the post. The books go out in the same boxes. Four today, and one more sold — nothing...
Records In, Books Out
The records for the sessions arrive in stiff cardboard built to survive the post. The books go out in the same boxes. Four today, and one more sold — nothing...
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Someone Asked If They Could Take It With Them
A member asked whether the sessions could exist without the video. The honest answer was yes — and it opened a door onto the part of the work nobody sees.
Someone Asked If They Could Take It With Them
A member asked whether the sessions could exist without the video. The honest answer was yes — and it opened a door onto the part of the work nobody sees.
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The Fourth Order
A fourth print run, placed almost absent-mindedly, for a book that has sold twelve copies. The number is small. What made the book exist in the first place was not.
The Fourth Order
A fourth print run, placed almost absent-mindedly, for a book that has sold twelve copies. The number is small. What made the book exist in the first place was not.
