Fuel the next story — one Flat White at a time.

By Rafi Mercer

Every page of Tracks & Tales starts the same way — with one Flat White.

I fuel my thinking with Flat White. It’s very simple.

A steady hand, milk folded into espresso, heat meeting calm.
I drink,
and I think,
and I listen.

It’s my habit and my craft. I listen to rooms — to the way light sits on a table, to how a record unfolds in space.

I’ve spent years in luxury sound by day, learning how shape and material change what the ear believes. Somewhere along the way I started hearing differently — less as noise, more as design.

Listening became a way to move through the world, and Tracks & Tales is simply the map I began to draw so I wouldn’t forget the route.

I didn’t set out to write any of this.
Truthfully, I never thought I’d write like this at all.

I’m not the type to announce a novel or draft a manifesto. I’m the one who lingers after the last track, notes the geometry of the bass in the corner, and files the feeling for later.

But a kind friend once said, “Just start. Write what you hear.” So I did.

Page by page, city by city, a quiet atlas emerged: places where music matters, rooms where attention is the décor, corners where the air itself carries a story if you stand still long enough to hear it.

My day job taught me the discipline to listen before I speak. It also showed me that most of us don’t lack taste — we lack time.

We rush past songs that could hold us together. We scroll through the very thing we came to feel.

So I made a promise: I’ll write the world as I hear it. I’ll slow down. I’ll let the rooms talk.

People often call listening a luxury. I think they’re right — but not in the way they mean.
Luxury isn’t always money; sometimes it’s attention.
A minute spent properly is worth more than an hour spent elsewhere.

And the miracle — the hopeful part — is that this luxury is oddly affordable.
A Flat White’s worth of time can change what a day sounds like.
A Flat White’s worth of belief can change what a project becomes.

That’s what Tracks & Tales has been built on so far: Flat Whites shared, in person and in spirit — small gestures that say, “carry on Rafi; this matters.”

So here’s my thinking out loud, unvarnished and honest: if you’ve found something here — a line, a room, a way of seeing your city with your ears — and you’d like this atlas to keep growing, you can buy me a coffee.

Symbolic, yes, but not trivial.

It’s how I’ve kept the rhythm steady: one cup to write the next page, another to finish a city, another to verify a venue so the map stays trustworthy.
It’s not patronage; it’s participation.

You’re not tipping a busker; you’re fuelling a cartographer.

And if you want to buy more than one drink — well, it will help.
It keeps the ink wet, the ears open, the lights on.

I’ve learned that rooms hold sound the way a hand holds water: imperfectly, beautifully, with a little spill and a little shine.

That’s why I write about architecture and bass notes in the same breath. That’s why a city page starts with weather and ends with a turntable.

There’s a thread running through it all: give attention a home and it becomes culture. Neglect it and it evaporates.

I think I have the skills and the mind to help change how we hear — not by shouting louder, but by tuning better.

The plan is simple and stubborn:
More cities mapped carefully.
More venues checked and cherished.
More essays that taste of place.
More rooms where strangers can listen as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

I’ll keep doing my part — early starts, late edits, the occasional stubborn sentence that finally lands — and you, if you feel like it, can meet me at the coffee line and say, “Keep going.”

A Flat White isn’t much.
But enough of them, placed side by side, become a table.
A first table, perhaps, where names are remembered and stories begin.

If you’ve read this far, you’re already at that table with me.

Thank you for listening — truly listening.

Choose your Flat White

Each cup fuels another page, another city, another sound.

• $5 — A Flat White: the spark that starts a page.
  A small act of belief that fuels the next story.
  
  
• $10 — A Double Shot: the second wind.
  Keeps the lights on and the pages warm.
  
  
• $25 — A Vinyl Side: the rhythm of discovery.
  Helps map one new listening venue, carefully verified.
  
  
• $50 — A Patron’s Pour: the long pour, the late night.
  Supports the essays where ideas find their shape.
  
  
• $150 — An Investor’s Roast: the Atlas rewrite.
  You’re helping build the global sound atlas itself — one story, one city, one night at a time.
  

Every contribution is symbolic but tangible — you’ll see it return in pages, in places, and in the quiet moments where music matters most.

Tracks & Tales is entirely self-funded but Flat White fuelled. Thank you for keeping this atlas open to everyone.

Thank you.
For the coffee, the company, and the belief that attention is still worth something.

Rafi Mercer