Wax Journal lists 10 places in Japan where the records come first: seven hi-fi cafés, six listening bars, two record stores and one listening restaurant. Some are more than one of those at once. They are spread over four cities, with the most in Tokyo. There is somewhere to dig in the afternoon and somewhere to sit down after. Every place was chosen by hand, and each page has its opening hours and address.
10 venues
Tokyo, Japan
1 want to visitCafé
Tucked in Tokyo's quiet Zoshigaya neighbourhood, Biblio.Classic is a listening café built around 12,000 analogue LPs and a hand-crafted speaker system that has to be heard to be believed. The owner spins classical music on request — no expertise required — while guests sip hand-drip coffee or loose-leaf tea. Small, unhurried, and completely analogue.
Tokyo, Japan
Bar, Café, Record store
Closed · Opens at 12:00
On the fourth floor of a worn office building in Shimokitazawa, former DJ Hirata and musician Keiichi Sokabe opened this record shop and café in 2007. The used stock stretches from Paradise Garage and Loft classics to rock staples, with overflow piled against the walls. Every record carries a handwritten note and can be played on the in-store players, while pasta remains the kitchen's signature.
Yokohama, Japan
Bar, Café
Closed · Opens tomorrow at 16:00
Downbeat has played jazz in Yokohama since 1956. In its first years American servicemen from the base at Honmoku came by to play, and the nights ran late. The records still come through a pair of Altec A7s, speakers that were designed for cinemas. Oil paintings of Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis by Kozo Kubo hang on the walls, browned by decades of cigarette smoke, and the ceiling is papered with pages from DownBeat magazine.
Tokyo, Japan
Bar, Café
Closed · Opens at 11:30
Masahiro Goto opened Eagle in 1967, in a basement a few minutes from Yotsuya station. Until six in the evening it is a jazz kissa in the old sense: the records play through a pair of JBL 4344s and guests are asked to listen quietly. After six it turns into a bar, with beer, whisky and wine, and people talk. The shelves hold books and magazines on jazz, several of them written by Goto himself, and he likes to call the place a jazz library. Earphones stay in your pocket.
Tokyo, Japan
Café
Closed · Opens at 13:00
On a hillside in Shibuya, Yanosuke Yamadera opened this classical music café in 1926 and designed the building himself, inside and out. It burned down in the air raids of 1945 and came back five years later in the same design. The wooden speakers stand about three metres tall in the back wall, and what plays through them is classical, from a record. No photographs, phones on silent, voices low.
