The Tracks & Tales Guide Daily

A running journal of the listening bar world — fragments, reflections, and discoveries written in the moment. Each piece follows the culture of slow listening as it unfolds, one record and one room at a time.

The Letter I Kept

The Letter I Kept

A letter arrived a few days before Christmas, at the end of twelve years at Virgin, and it went into a drawer. Forty-two weeks ago I started writin...
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Five Sessions In

Five Sessions In

Five sessions in, the growth has been gentle and the feedback unnervingly consistent. Two things keep coming back, and neither was on the list: peo...
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The Gap After the Side Ends

The Gap After the Side Ends

You never know what you think of a record while it's still playing. You find out in the silence after it, in whether your hand moves toward the she...
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Marks in the Dead Wax

Marks in the Dead Wax

The run-out groove was never meant to be read. Engineers scratched matrix numbers into the dead wax for other engineers, and time turned bookkeepin...
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Records In, Books Out

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...
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Someone Asked If They Could Take It With Them

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 nobod...
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