The Japanese Listening-Bar Pilgrimage.

The listening bar is a Japanese export. It began in Tokyo in the 1950s, when imported Western jazz records were rare enough to assemble strangers around a single phonograph and a single speaker for an evening. Seven decades later, the form is a global subculture: Brilliant Corners in London, Public Records in Brooklyn, Spiritland in Manchester. The Tokyo originals still set the bar. This route is a three-night Tokyo pilgrimage, with two regional adjuncts (Bangkok and Bali) for travellers who land in Southeast Asia first. Phones away. Conversation low. The room is the instrument.