Japan’s ‘listening lounges’ offer pure music with a side of drinks

Inside the low-key audiophile paradise of Bar Martha, one of Tokyo’s premier “listening lounges”, conversation is allowed but discouraged. 

People are asked to keep their voices down and to refrain from taking photos or posting about it on social media. Nobody is allowed to make requests — the DJs pick from their own playlists. 

The 50-seat Bar Martha has a pretty reasonable nightly cover charge of about $8, and it doesn’t take reservations. People can get a cocktail — or even smoke — while they listen to tunes, with the genre shifting according to the DJs’ mood. 

Duncan Turner, who was recently at Bar Martha with a friend, said that it was their first listening bar experience and they liked it, despite the restrictions. 

“You really rarely just sit and listen to music, especially analog music — you know, vinyl records through a really impressive sound system,” Turner said. “And you do have a kind of a new appreciation of it.”  

The listening lounge experience is about basking in the unique sound of vinyl being played on a vintage stereo system. The old tube amplifiers and gigantic antique speakers here cost well into the six figures. And right now, venues like these, which are called ongaku kissa, or “music cafés”, are seeing something of a revival both inside and outside of Japan. 

Shuya Okino has been in the music business for several decades and owns a nightclub in Tokyo. 

“We call it jazz kissa,” he said. 

Jazz kissa, or jazz cafés, became a thing back in the 1950s, he explained, after the Korean War when American military personnel passed through Japan and brought jazz records with them. 

Okino said a big moment was in 1961 when Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers played here. 

“So, TV, radio introduce Art Blakey as a symbol of modern jazz.”  

The music became hugely popular, but vinyl records were prohibitively expensive for most people.  

In recent years, listening lounges have opened up all over Japan.  

Okino said that they’re sort of a revival of those original jazz kissas, and he reckoned that there’s another reason why decidedly low-key listening lounges are so hot right now. 

The younger generation has a different approach toward nightlife. 

“When I was young, drinking and talking, dancing till morning,” he said. “But they are, I don’t want to say, ‘square.’ I don’t know the right words. They want to enjoy Sunday holiday, so they want to go home earlier. Go to bed, wake up early.”

From what he can tell, he said, “They are young, but they are more mature [in their] thinking.” 

Nobuo Miyamae, 57, has been spinning records at the Little Soul Cafe in Tokyo for more than 20 years. 

Miya, as he’s known, said that he was first inspired by hip-hop as a teenager and later, funk, soul and R&B — all of which he plays for patrons. 

“In Japan, listening lounges are kind of a fad right now and those come and go,” Miya said. “But in the West, I think it’s hard to find a place where you find a chill drink and just sit and listen to someone play records. That’s why I think Japanese-style listening lounges are starting to open in other countries.” 

And Miya said, if his patrons feel like having a lively conversation, he’s totally fine with that.