A Century in Sound: A Love Letter to Japanese Listening Cafes

Tokyo Weekender

2 days ago

Ongaku kissa
, also known as listening cafés, are tranquil spaces dedicated to an analog appreciation of music. They tend to have a distinctive atmosphere: Dimly lit and often shrouded in a veil of cigarette smoke, these are places to devote oneself to music, listening closely and speaking in hushed tones, if at all. Many have the feel of living time capsules; online, they're romanticized for their nostalgic charm and undeniable je ne sais quoi. But as Nick Dwyer and Tu Neill unpack in their incandescent six-episode documentary
A Century in Sound
, ongaku kissa are so much more than beautiful relics of bygone eras.
First appearing in the 1920s, ongaku kissa have quietly kept their seat in Japan's dynamic music scene, bearing witness to periods of Western infusion, social upheaval, glittering affluence and beyond.
A Century in Sound
unearths this history with a light and loving touch, by telling the stories of several ongaku kissa and their owners, many of whom have been helming their businesses for decades. The documentary renders a distinctly Japanese musical phenomenon with immense care and respect, ultimately reaffirming the role music plays in our individual and collective existences.
List of Contents:
The Art of Listening
Mastering the Classics
Playing It by Ear
It Takes a Village
An Aural Renaissance
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The Art of Listening
Born and raised in New Zealand, writer-director Nick Dwyer was initially drawn to Japanese aesthetics and music via a Nintendo Game Boy his brother gifted him. 'The artwork, the design, the way kanji characters were anthropomorphized — it blew my mind,' he recounts. 'I bought a Japanese dictionary and taught myself how to read and write, and decided as a teenager that I would move to Japan.'
In his 20s, Dwyer traveled to Japan for
Making Tracks
, a TV show he hosted about world music culture, which was broadcast on the BBC and National Geographic. 'I fell in love with the music culture here — the record stores, the small clubs, the sound systems — and I just started coming here every year since 2004,' he says. In 2014, he made good on his childhood resolution and moved to Tokyo.
At the time, he recalls, he was 'a bit jaded personally and professionally.' He continues, 'I had moved to Japan for a number of reasons, but the main one was to fall in love with music again.' After a long period of being deeply immersed in electronic and club music scenes, and extensive globetrotting throughout his 20s for
Making Tracks
— from Trinidad and Tobago to Argentina, South Africa, India and dozens more countries — Dwyer was more than ready to take a deep breath.
In late 2014, he stepped into Meikyoku Kissa Lion, which is generally thought to be the oldest ongaku kissa in Japan, for the first time. It was an encounter that left him indelibly changed. 'Café Lion put me in a situation where I was forced to listen … and I was like, hang on a second — my whole life and career is music, but when was the last time I actually
listened
to music? Just sat and listened to an album?' Dwyer began filling his days at ongaku kissa, visiting hundreds of locations across the country, from Hokkaido to the southernmost islands of the Japanese archipelago. Ten years and many musical awakenings later,
A Century in Sound
was realized.
Meikyoku Kissa Lion | A Century In Sound
Mastering the Classics
Meikyoku Kissa Lion
is fittingly the focus of
A Century in Sound
's first episode. '
Meikyoku
' means 'musical masterpiece,' referring to classical works by composers like Beethoven, Mozart and Debussy. Out of respect for the café's hushed, reverent atmosphere, it took years for Dwyer to approach its owner, Keiko Ishihara, about filming there. Lion maintains a strict 'no photography, no talking' policy, and at the time, it had never been captured on screen. 'I would go every day, sometimes twice a day, until the staff got to know me as a regular,' he tells
Tokyo Weekender
.
Ishihara's late husband was the brother-in-law of Yanosuke Yamadera, who founded Meikyoku Kissa Lion in 1926. The café was rebuilt after the area burned down during an air raid in 1945, and Yamadera developed his collection of records by travelling to the night markets and buying records left behind by the American troops.
Ishihara, a child at the time, recalls the influx of Western culture after the horrors of the war, a time when the Japanese public grew fascinated with Western musical genres. This, combined with people's inability to acquire expensive listening equipment, made Yamadera's treasure trove hugely successful. 'People used to line up in front before opening hours,' Ishihara says, 'and they'd all rush to sit in their designated seats.'
The baroque, stone-walled facade of Meikyoku Kissa Lion remains unchanged today, imposing and enigmatic, having been witness to decades of history. Venturing inside reveals a high-ceilinged cavern brimming with over 5,000 classical records. Akin to an old movie theater, rows of velveteen chairs face two stately speakers that loom in the place of a screen. Like moviegoers, the café's patrons sit in silence, letting the melodies wash over them while silently sipping coffee.
For Ishihara and her patrons, Lion is both academically and spiritually enriching; it's a place to worship, study and appreciate the genre. 'I learned about classical music here, rather than the classical music taught at school,' she says.
Playing It by Ear
Within the category of ongaku kissa, there's an expansive variety of subcategories — not just meikyoku kissa, but jazz kissa, rock kissa and innumerable others as well. The documentary's second episode delves into the story of Masahiro Yoshida, the founder and owner of the legendary
Jazz Kissa Eigakan
('Jazz Café Movie Theater'), which he opened in 1978 near Hakusan Station in Tokyo's Bunkyo ward.
Jazz kissa and records existed in Japan during the 1930s, but most of them were confiscated or destroyed during the war. Post-war, bebop — a new kind of jazz characterized by adventurous improvisation, fast tempos and complex harmonies — took center stage, spawning a host of jazz kissa and clubs around Tokyo.
'I think the genre is still popular because it's more complex and layered compared to modern music — the more you listen to it, the more you find,' Yoshida suggests. To craft a tangible, warm soundscape essential to the genre, he spent decades perfecting a built-from-scratch sound system, featuring wooden horns and vacuum tube amplifiers. '[The audio system] is my own masterpiece,' Yoshida tells Dwyer. 'Humans want to do many different things, but I think a life best lived is one that is used to pursue a single thing.'
Jazz Kissa Eigakan Owner Masahiro Yoshida With The Cafe's Bespoke Sound system
It Takes a Village
The resilient foundation of an ongaku kissa relies on its '
jyoren
' — devoted regulars. For these regulars, listening cafés function as a safe haven from the toils of city life. 'All major urban centers need these places, but especially in Tokyo, third spaces are so important,' Dwyer says. Indeed, ongaku kissa foster a sense of belonging for apartment-dwelling Tokyoites living in practiced isolation.
The series' third episode showcases the rock-focused
Bird Song Cafe
, which was modeled after the legendary Black Hawk in Shibuya — a rock 'dojo' from the 1970s known for its intense listening sessions and loyal crowd of 'Black Hawk Children.' 'Black Hawk was a place where you would meditate to the music. The place was more academic than other rock kissa,' proprietor Junichi Umezawa explains. 'It was like a continuation of classes at university.'
Interviews with several regulars reveal just how deeply these listening spaces resonate: a former Black Hawk Child, now in her 60s, who lost touch with her passion for rock after marriage and motherhood but rediscovered it at Bird Song; a salaryman and avid record collector who calls Umezawa his 'music teacher'; and a woman who found comfort there after the tragic loss of her son. 'I couldn't listen to any of the music from my past during that time … [Umezawa] helped me heal through music,' she recalls.
Umezawa understands that Bird Song Cafe is more than just a place to hang out — for many customers, it serves a vital purpose. 'In the past, Japan was a society of villages … but times have changed,' he notes. 'I think people still need each other. This is the commune now.'
An Aural Renaissance
As a regular himself at a constellation of ongaku kissa, Dwyer's goal in creating
A Century in Sound
was to share his love for this unique facet of Japanese audiophile culture with the world. More broadly, he hoped to spark conversations about the fundamental value of music in our lives. 'It's something we all need to think about in the present day, when music has lost a lot of its meaning,' he expresses, characterizing its current commodified form as 'aural wallpaper.'
Despite the dominance of streaming culture, Dwyer sincerely sees a bright future for the art of analog listening. When I ask him whether ongaku kissa will be able to stand the test of time, the answer is a resounding yes. 'There are so many people who are starting their own places inspired by ongaku kissa,' he tells me, spotlighting Shimokitazawa's
Tonlist
and
Masako
as examples. 'There's a common misconception that this culture is an old people's culture, but it's not. It's more young and vibrant than ever before.
'Music needs to be experienced in an analog way in order for it to form a memory. I'm never going to form a memory to music when I'm sitting at home getting fed something from an algorithm,' Dwyer continues. 'To me, ongaku kissa are schools, churches, hospitals. They're portals to other dimensions. Recorded music has the power to be so transcendent, and these places unlock its full potential — it's something we all need to get back in our lives.'
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