When the World Tunes In
By Rafi Mercer
I zoomed out today and felt something quietly shift.
Not a spike. Not a surge. But a recognition.
On the map, cities appeared — not the obvious ones alone, not just capitals or cultural shorthand, but places with names you don’t usually see highlighted. Towns. Secondary cities. Regional centres. Over a thousand of them now. Each one a small signal that someone, somewhere, had paused long enough to listen — and then found their way here.
What struck me wasn’t the scale. It was the shape.
This wasn’t attention arriving in straight lines or neat clusters. It spread the way music does — sideways, unevenly, person to person. A friend sends a link. A late-night reader follows a thought. Someone searches for how their city might sound, rather than how it looks. No campaigns. No prompts. Just curiosity moving under its own steam.
That’s when you realise something important: this isn’t about being loud enough to be heard. It’s about being clear enough to be recognised.
Tracks & Tales was never built to chase the centre. It was built to honour the edges — the rooms above bars, the cafés with one good system, the cities that don’t shout but hum. And those are exactly the places tuning in now. The map proves it.
There’s a moment in listening when you stop adjusting the volume and trust the room. This feels like that. Less effort. More presence. Letting the signal carry.
If the world is tuning in, it’s not because we asked it to.
It’s because somewhere along the way, we learned how to listen first.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
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