Once, in a city of traffic reports, a young man named Simon Bell started a label. Dust and Echoes, was what he called it because music felt like that to him. A shimmer in time and what remains after. At first, he released what he loved. Field recordings of distant bells. A woman in Cornwall singing lullabies to her sheep. A cassette of a broken accordion played at dawn near a bakery. People smiled politely. But no one bought them. One day, a businessman in dark sunglasses said, “Your sounds are interesting. But the market wants hits. Beats. Gloss. You could be successful if you just gave people what they already like.” Simon did not answer, he just continued releasing the strange little albums. One about birds. One about wind. One entirely made of silence, except the sound of the microphone being plugged in. Years passed. The label remained poor, but peaceful. Then something curious happened. A famous musician, tired of his fame, stumbled across a copy of Rainfall on Cracked Tiles in a thrift store in Stratford. He listened. And wept. He tweeted about it. Soon others followed. Soon a movement. No one could explain it. DJs sampled the silences. Filmmakers licensed the cough between two songs. A bestselling novelist said the label’s catalogue reminded him to be honest again. Suddenly, Dust and Echoes was famous. An interviewer asked Simon, “How did you know this would work?” Simon smiled. “I did not.” “Then why did you keep going?” Simon sipped his tea. “Because I was already being paid.” The interviewer blinked. “Paid by whom?” Simon looked out the window. “By the music itself, which only pretends to need us.”