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.
On June 25, 1961, Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian played five sets at the Village Vanguard. Eleven days later, the trio ceased to exist. What they left behind is one of the most precise documents of what a piano actually sounds ...
In 1956, Jimmy Smith walked into Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack with a Hammond B-3 and two years of experience. What came out was Blue Note 1514 — a record that didn't just fill rooms. It pressurised them. Nearly seventy years la...
Barry White's Sings for Someone You Love doesn't ask for your attention. It assumes you'll stay. One of soul music's most generous records — warm, orchestral, and completely without irony.
Eddie Henderson's Sunburst doesn't demand your attention. It earns it, patiently, bar by bar — a Blue Note record from 1975 that understands space better than almost anything from its era.
Made almost entirely alone at twenty-one, released to silence, rediscovered thirty years later. Inspiration Information is the sound of complete creative freedom — and one of the great records in American music.
Diamond Life is not a smooth record. It is an honest one. The composure is the point — and underneath it, if you listen properly, she is telling you exactly where she was.
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.
It started as a question about where music sounds right. It turns out that question translates. Tracks & Tales is now available to read in three languages — and the...
It started as a question about where music sounds right. It turns out that question translates. Tracks & Tales is now available to read in three languages — and the...
The first million impressions is close. But the real work happened in the quiet months before anyone arrived — a story about return, wandering, and the slow build of something...
The first million impressions is close. But the real work happened in the quiet months before anyone arrived — a story about return, wandering, and the slow build of something...
On the records, rooms and rituals that don't reveal themselves all at once — and the feeling in your chest that tells you when you're truly listening.
On the records, rooms and rituals that don't reveal themselves all at once — and the feeling in your chest that tells you when you're truly listening.
I didn't know if anyone was out there. That's the honest version. When I started building Tracks & Tales, there was no map, no precedent — just an idea I...
I didn't know if anyone was out there. That's the honest version. When I started building Tracks & Tales, there was no map, no precedent — just an idea I...
Rafi Mercer explains the thinking behind the Tracks & Tales Star — how we listen, choose, and award.
