Waxflower
Waxflower
Rekodo
The first clue you’re in a listening bar is the music set-up. At Waxflower in Melbourne’s Brunswick, a DJ with turntables and a mixer shares the bar space with the bartender. Behind them is a wall of records on shelves, on top of which sit exquisite twin speakers custom made by Pitt & Giblin in Hobart.
But a listening bar is as much about the things you don’t hear as it is about the things you do.
“You need to build air pockets, places to deaden and absorb sound,” says co-owner David Byrne. “Then even if music is playing, and people are cutting away on plates, someone is having a good time laughing in the corner – the acoustics take care of that. You can still hear.”
In Japan, listening bars, or jazz kissatens, first popped up in the 1950s. After its WWII surrender, Japan was struggling, and few people could afford luxuries like record players or vinyl. Jazz kissatens became a place for audiophiles to listen to the latest American music.
Jazz kissatens are about the joy of discovering music and listening in an optimal sound environment. Some are cafes serving a limited offering of drinks, others are bars with food, and some are run by music purists that have a policy that when a record is playing, no one can speak.
“You focus on the sound and try to sink into the world of music,” Tokyo DJ Chee Shimizu says in a Resident Advisor series about Japan’s fascinating hidden listening bars.
In Australia, the proposition is slightly different.
“Australians are loud, and they get louder when they drink,” says Sean O’Neill of Perth’s Astral Weeks. “You have to accept that people are going to talk, it’s not like in Japan where there are six seats and everyone is quietly listening.”
There’re only a handful of genuine listening bars across Australia, but the genre is gaining popularity. Here they are places with high-end audio equipment and considered acoustics and sound-proofing, and a record collection numbering in the thousands.
There’s Waxflower in Melbourne, Ante in Sydney and Astral Weeks in Perth. Melbourne’s Music Room is a listening bar within a bar, and although Sonny in Hobart doesn’t bill itself as a listening bar, it has a 3000-strong record collection and speakers by Pitt & Gilbin.
There’s also Bahama Gold, a new bar within Melbourne’s Old Palm Liquor, that recently installed dual Klipsch speakers and a Luxman vacuum-tube amplifier – together worth $60,000 – to play its 500 records. “[It’s] worth every bit of it,” says co-owner Simon Denman.
In Sydney, Matt Moran’s Rekodo takes inspiration from the listening bar concept, but its priority is really to be a restaurant. That said it has a slick sound system and a curator program that kicked off with Aria-nominated artist Meg Mac.
Here’s everything you need to know about Australia’s best.
Astral Weeks, Perth
Although the Perth Chinatown bar is relatively small, Astral Weeks packs out on the weekends. That’s not to say it has a nightclub feel though.
“It’s a bit of a party,” says O’Neill. “But it’s not crazy loud. We’ve been careful to balance the sound. We’ve got acoustic-treated carpet that dampens frequencies, and large acoustic panels that absorb some of the reverberating sound and chatter. The idea is you’re able to sit at a table and have a conversation with mates without having to yell. Ultimately, it’s a place to come and appreciate music.”
In the lead up to its opening earlier this year, Sean O’Neill, one of the partners behind the venue, told Broadsheet they had a mission to create Perth’s equivalent of some of the best listening bars around the globe, Japan’s Gold Lines and London’s Brilliant Corners. Their weapon of choice? A punchy, hand-built Line Magnetic sound system.
Sixty-seater Astral Weeks, which is in a former Chinese herbalist’s shop (and also the name of Van Morrison’s seminal second album), has strategically positioned downlights to draw your eye to the bar and DJ booth-slash-record shelving. And there’s a neat drinks menu of wines, beers, spirits and saké served by a crew of bartenders who also spin the records.
Waxflower, Melbourne
Waxflower combines music, food and wine in a way the Victorian capital hadn’t seen when it opened in early 2021.
With its Mediterranean-focused menu, natural wines, a Modbar espresso machine pumping out Seven Seeds coffee and an outstanding sound system, it combined elements of Melbourne cafes, Euro wine bars and Tokyo listening bars. But the venue came about partly in response to the local music scene.
“Melbourne has this reputation for having a great music scene and underground nightlife, but so many venues have terrible sound systems,” says co-owner David Byrne Byrne.
Waxflower’s speaker system was a prototype by Hobart-based Jack Pitt and Ross Giblin. It inspired a range of almost-eponymous speakers, Super Wax, and put Pitt & Giblin on the map. The sound is exquisite: clear and nuanced, but never overbearing. (They’ve since made a Superwax Mini for the home.)
The 3500-plus records are owned by one of Waxflower’s four founders and the man in charge of the music program, Jimmy Pham (DJ name Walter Majik). He books local stars such as Miss Goldie, Wax’o Paradiso and Myles Mac, who spin jazz, downtempo, experimental, psychrock, and other genres that don’t necessarily work on dancefloors.
“We wanted to make a place that was social so you could connect with people around the venue, but you can also come by yourself and there’s no awkwardness. You can just sit and listen,” says Byrne.
Ante, Sydney
Trucks and emergency vehicles frequently pass by Ante’s front windows along boisterous King Street, but remarkably, you can’t hear them. What you can hear is whatever co-owner Matt Young has chosen for the turntable, played over a sound system that has such good components, Young jokes, “they’ll outlive me”.
At Ante, escaping the frenetic outside world is as effective as it is in Tokyo’s jazz kissatens. “You feel quite removed from the world outside,” Young says. “We spent a good budget on sound, creating an environment where you can play music and talk, but not have to shout at each other.”
Tunes come courtesy of Young’s personal collection of 2500 records and are the ideal accompaniment to the extensive list of junmai (pure rice) saké by the glass, carafe, bottle or flight, and co-owner Jemma Whiteman’s menu that balances Japanese influences and ingredients with inspiration from all over the world.
Whiteman’s food is partly why this place is great – she has worked at notable restaurants Pinbone, Café Paci, Lankan Filling Station and Billy Kwong. It’s also the exceptional knowledge behind the bar.
For years Young has travelled Japan extensively to source artisanal saké for his Black Market Saké. His preference is for smaller producers and Japan’s most sought-after breweries that hand craft their products using traditional brewing techniques. It means at Ante you can not only enjoy an evening of great tunes, you can pair it with some of the best sakés available in Australia.
Music Room, Melbourne
There’s a mesmerising light installation by renowned designer Hervé Descottes on the ceiling of this intimate bar-within-a-bar that dynamically responds to the music emanating from the premium bespoke sound system and speakers.
The music comes from a collection of around 3000 records spanning genres from disco to funk, house and beyond spun by a rotating cast of veteran and rising DJs. They curate three decks each night, creating what seems like the perfect soundtrack to a rowdy evening.
Find the bar behind a soundproofed door on the first floor of multi-storey venue Her, which is the latest venture by the group that brought us Arbory Afloat. And as well as being a dedicated space to hear hand-selected tunes in high fidelity, Music Room acts as the musical nervous system for the entire Her venue.
Spirits and smashable cocktails are the focus, but if you can also get Aussie pet nats, obscure Champagnes, Prosecco and Lambrusco. This all comes together for a delightfully rowdy – and highly memorable – night.
Additional reporting by Max Veenhuyzen, Dan Cunningham, Nick Connellan and Sarah Norris.
27 Oct 2022
26 Oct 2022
26 Oct 2022
25 Oct 2022