In Tokyo’s busy Shibuya district, custom wooden speakers jutting from a double-height wall represent world stars. Mikyouko Kisa Lion. This dark, moody, Baroque-inspired space is enlivened by a magnificent chandelier—the original, built in 1926, burned down during World War II—and has attracted classical music lovers for decades. Here, the atmosphere is more like a salon-style concert, with all attention focused on the record of the moment, its sound amplified through imposing speakers. Phones are hidden away. Even whispering is forbidden. As social life increasingly prioritizes communication, Japanese listening rooms, rooted in jazz, serve as a source of inspiration. In these secret havens, vast stashes of vinyl enjoyed in collective silence take center stage, constantly informing a deluge of high-resolution bars around the world in various permutations.
For Bobby Carey, co-founder of Singapore-based hospitality consultancy Studio Rycroft, the growing appeal of listening bars stems from the growing number of international travelers to Japan. About 20 years ago, when he first visited the country, “there were no signs in English, there were no apps. You wouldn’t find listening bars,” Carey recalls. Now, it has become accessible to the masses, and some of them are so fascinated by the unique experience that they are keen to translate it to their city when they come He comes back. “But they can’t replicate that,” Curry adds. “There is a reverence in Japanese kissing culture. There are no words, no images. You light a cigarette, have some whiskey, and listen to an album from beginning to end.”
Find balance
Copenhagen vinyl tape birdreleased in 2021, was certainly influenced by Japanese kisa music and its significant role in supporting Western jazz in the post-war periods. At the time, their phonographs attracted local customers to listen to music that was not available or affordable. “Today, they still handle the difficult task of making busy people feel relaxed,” Peter Altenburg, co-founder of Bird, tells the Observer. “That was our humble goal: to make people feel relaxed when they entered the room.”
But at both Bird locations (the original in Fredericksburg and the downtown branch), guests talk freely, relaxing to music enhanced by excellent sound. With the help of an acoustician, entire walls of perforated plaster and thick rockwool were installed, as were custom-designed speakers equipped with software allowing individual sound control.
It’s the perfect backdrop for vinyl playing and for DJs and DJs to move between Thai funk and electronic music as customers sample Nickthorn margaritas and umeshu martinis. Altenburg acknowledges the boom in bars like Bird, but believes premium bars offer playlists that respond to the ever-changing atmosphere of the room. “I really think guests love the personal curation of music with a human touch,” he says.
There was an influx of record tapes in New York City, and in 2022, Joseph Munn furthered the genre by Ouray baran upstairs vinyl stash in the Downtown Eastside. Although there are rules – no venue, no parties larger than four – the aim is to relax amid mid-century furniture, with Japanese whiskey in hand, while tracks from the likes of American soul and funk greats Sisters Love and Leon Haywood fill the room.
Both Tokyo and Seoul have left their mark on Bar Ourai. “Many record bars in Tokyo have been around for decades without much fanfare. Often, it’s just thousands of records behind the counter and the owner carefully chooses what to play next,” Moon explains. “When someone likes a song, a conversation starts, and the room slowly becomes a little community built around the music. Those spaces showed me how a bar can be organized around listening without the need for a scene.” By contrast, Seoul attracted him by the presence of touring DJs and the constant, lively flow of ideas among like-minded creatives. “Both cities made me realize that record bars are ultimately as much about the people as they are about the music,” he says. “They become quiet meeting points for listeners, collectors, musicians and producers, sometimes without anyone realizing who is sitting next to them. This unpredictability has always been part of the charm.”
Visual appeal
Sound, of course, takes precedence in vinyl tape, but design is just as important as in contemporary iterations. It is considered Off the record at the Fairmont Tokyo, which debuts in 2025. Accessed via a corridor linked to the Driftwood restaurant on the hotel’s 43rd floor, it seats just 14 people, all of whom are tipped to stay. “Off Record isn’t the kind of bar you pass through; it’s a destination and a place to stay,” says Lucas Chirnside, design director at Melbourne firm Bar Studio, which brought the concept to life. To create an inviting, glamorous feel, Chirnside and his team relied on glowing sconces on bronze fluted glass columns and chose Nero Picasso marble for the bar set in front of rows of illuminated vinyl like gallery objects. “The intimate proportions immediately give a satisfying acoustic feel, with the soft furnishings and carpets adding to the effect,” he says.
Last year also saw the arrival Psychondo At the Four Seasons Hotel Abu Dhabi on Al Maryah Island, one of Bobby Carey’s latest projects. Carey points out that Abu Dhabi’s nightlife scene “isn’t about sitting in the corner and listening to music. It’s loud and loud.” Transporting a Japanese-style tape recorder to the Middle East was difficult, but Saikendo’s design was pivotal in the process. AvroKO, the company that came up with the idea, took cues from Metabolism, the irreverent Japanese architecture movement that viewed buildings as living organisms, as well as Bōsōzoku, the Japanese subculture synonymous with flashy DIY motorcycles and embroidered leather jackets.
“Music and design work very well together because they both have excitement and a strong sense of character. There’s rhythm. There’s playfulness. They both celebrate the obsession with craft and detail,” says William Harris, co-founder and principal of AvroKO, based in New York. “The music and design are both lush and full of emotion with the warm, orange-hued lighting acting as the glue between it all.” Before arriving at the bar and ordering a Big Poppa with sotole, Campari, wasabi, tomato dashi, and vanilla, guests pass through a long, mysterious corridor that “blocks any hints of what’s to come,” says Harris. “Highly backlit walls and a mirrored ceiling create a sense of spatial mystery and wonder; separation from the rest of the world.”
Another sneaky addition for 2025 is Hidden grooves Virgin Hotels London Shoreditch. Its DNA pays homage to Japanese listening bars, but it’s an expression of London. “Shoreditch has its own creative energy, and Virgin has its own deep musical heritage, so we wanted to interpret the format through that lens,” says Teddy Meyer, vice president of design at Virgin Hotels. The interior, designed in collaboration with local EPR architects, has a 1970s feel. “The room is anchored by Tannoy Westminster speakers, pieces typically found in private collections, surrounded by a vinyl library of more than 5,000 records,” explains Mayer. Vibrant red panels integrated into the wall-to-wall wooden record racks “serve as a visual link to the Virgin brand while also absorbing sound and dampening reflections in the room.”
Type expansion
When did Will Patton and co Press Club In the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in late 2024, records clearly identify the bar. “But we didn’t want to be a traditional vinyl tape,” Patton tells the Observer. “We wanted to play vinyl as an extension of our style of hospitality, like you’re hanging out in your cool uncle’s living room.”
These nostalgic plots are enhanced by rotating ‘tracklist’ menus. The current release, “Y2K Bangers,” highlights cocktails named after songs from the 2000s, appropriately included in lists that resemble two albums from that era –Satan’s days From Gorillaz and American idiot From Green Day – reimagined by local artists. “We start with a good cocktail and then we find a song that we think is related to it and we find elements of the song and put them in the drink,” Patton says. For example, MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” spawned a riff of the same name with tequila, pisco, yuzu, olive oil, Albarino, lemon and lime, which stretches out in a complex, complex way to capture the song’s satirical lyrics.
Cocktails also intersect with culture in Diamono. Ludo Rahal has fond memories of growing up in the hospitality industry. His grandfather ran a successful restaurant in Dakar, Senegal, and once his father and uncle joined the business, it grew to include the beachfront resort of Terrou-Bi. It was only natural, then, that Rahal would be keen to make his own mark on the family’s Dakar estate, and he did so with Diamono in 2025. The bar inside Terrou-Bi is filled with vinyl, an homage to the Japanese kiss, but it’s definitely in Dakar. Rahal was keen to distill the essence of the city. “The starting point was music,” he says. “Senegal has Portuguese and French influences, and you can hear that in the music as well.” One night, the turntable might be adorned with an album by Senegalese singer Youssou Ndour, and another by Congolese artist Kofi Olomide, highlighting other parts of Africa as well. “We designed it as a home environment. The bar counter is low. You can even choose your own record,” says Rahal. Further anchoring Diamono to its location are drinks like fragrant margaritas with local chili, backed by sea views.
in eduro, And in Mumbai’s Bandra area, convenience is also a priority. Originally, co-founder Anil Kapli planned to use the space above its sister restaurant, Izumi, as a formal listening bar. But then he and his partners realized that dull tunes weren’t the goal, so it turned into a bar with a great music system where records are still its raison d’être.
Designed specifically for the venue, the Electric Blue speakers are an eye-catching centerpiece. “We were careful not to make it feel like a studio,” Kapli explains. “There’s a slight nod to cyberpunk and Tokyo’s night scene, but we didn’t want an overt effect; we wanted to let the ambiance influence the bar rather than the suggestive interior design.”
Idoru eschews mainstream music for Libyan funk or, say, South Asian hip-hop, and it’s not uncommon for afternoon conversations about post-punk bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Beat Happening, and Spacemen 3 to unfold at the bar as well. “It’s just a free-wheeling conversation about records,” Caple says. “Geeks, geeks.”
Some prohibit gossip. Others are just full of records, but audiophiles coming together in all imaginative forms may just be a loose new definition of a vinyl tape.
