If you told someone from anywhere but Britain you were going “out” but not “out out” they might look at you like you had a radish growing out of your head. But here, we all know what that means. You’re leaving your home. Maybe you’re even getting dressed up. But you’ll be back by 11pm. Midnight, at a push. It’ll be four to five drinks max. Unless, you know, someone twists your arm.
This one foot in the door, one foot out energy is enough to make you feel patriotic. We are, fundamentally, a nation of ditherers. Which is why many of us have been thrilled to discover the surge of hi-fi listening bars spreading through our cities. The spaces – low lighting, comfy chairs, hoards of records, lethal martinis, good food, state of the art speakers – sit somewhere between a vinyl store, living room and cocktail lounge. Read: they’re the perfect venue for a noncommittal nation’s new night out.
Listening bars originated in Japan in the 50s and 60s, where they were taken very seriously. The experience was akin to going to the cinema: you put a record on, and listened to it in silence. Nobody was allowed to talk. You breathed between tracks like you were at a classical music concert. It wasn’t designed as a social experience. In the UK, we’ve taken a more liberal approach. While supersonic speakers and an impressive vinyl collection are still an absolute must, gentle conversation is also permitted in our hi-fi spaces - along with occasional late-night dancing.
London’s first listening bar, Brilliant Corners in Dalston opened in 2013, followed three years later by Spiritland in King’s Cross. Through the mid-2010s, more venues opened across the capital and beyond as popularity boomed, with Jumbi and Hausu in Peckham and Bambi and Goodbye Horses in Hackney now among the most popular.
The rise of the hi-fi listening bar in London is symptomatic of our inclination towards “experience dining” according to OpenTable’s Senior Director, Sasha Shaker. “While great food and service remain must-haves, the vibe plays a big role in what makes a meal memorable,” he says, pointing to Bar Levan in Peckham and Cafe 1001 in Spitalfields as additional listening lounge favourites. “They strike the perfect balance between dining and immersion, offering spaces where people can socialise, listen to music and enjoy a quality menu,” he says.
Hidden Grooves in Shoreditch, which opened this summer, is one of London’s newest listening lounges. Situated inside a Virgin Hotel, the bar actually made founder Richard Branson – who launched Virgin selling cut price records in the Seventies before it became a record store and label ahead of developing into a media empire – jump up and down with glee when he saw it. “He looked like a kid,” says Neil Aline, Virgin Hotels Director of Entertainment who devised the concept for Hidden Grooves. “In that neighbourhood, there are already a lot of listening bars. But I knew we could do it better.”
Aline spent a year sourcing records for the bar’s collection from auctions and vinyl shops to ensure they had a good stack of disco, reggae and pop classics that dwarfed other spaces' offerings. Next, were the speakers – the crown jewels of a listening bar. “I told the team it was going to be expensive,” he laughs. “We don’t want to call ourselves a hi-fi lounge if we’re not going to have that high fidelity experience.” They opted for Westminster speakers from Tannoy, who’ve been making speakers in the UK since 1926. “There’s a two year waitlist,” says Aline. “Each speaker is basically the price of the car.” New, they cost a whopping £55,000.
Audiophiles will love this, but the 800 square foot space appeals to the everyman, too. Especially the ones who partied particularly hard pre-Covid. “I think there’s people like me, who’ve been into dance music and clubbing for 30 years and want something different and a little cosier and intimate,” says Aline. “You love music. Appreciate an amazing drink. The DJ is playing, you’re surrounded by some people – but it’s not loud, so you can still talk to your friends and hear the conversation. You don’t have to go wild but you can still have a great time. It’s a lot more social than a club. It’s that hybrid between being in your living room and being at a bar.”
When Bradley Zero, founder of record label Rhythm Section, set up hi-fi listening bar Jumbi alongside producer Nathanael Williams in Peckham in 2022, he took the premise one step further. “I’d just moved out of my house and I needed somewhere to store my records,” he says. “I brought all my speakers, all my audio equipment, even my sofa. We really recreated a living room.” Jumbi’s library still contains Zero’s entire vinyl collection, which DJ’s carefully select discs from, rather than mixing, to encourage a deeper listening experience. “What naturally happened in the very first week is that when people finished eating, we cleared the tables away and it became a house party. It’s definitely not a club,” he hastens. “We don’t have lasers. We only have one turntable. It’s really one record after another.”
Zero, who spends many of his nights making people dance from the decks in clubs across London, makes it clear he’s not coming for clubbing culture’. “You don’t always want to go out into a loud, dark room,” he says. “You want to be able to eat, talk and dance. We just filled that gap.” Aline echoes: “Post-COVID, a lot of us were very nervous to go out into a big club. This is a different experience.”
In the last five years, roughly 400 nightclubs have closed in Britain, which equates to more than a third of the total number in the country. In London, a dedicated task force is being launched by the mayor’s office in a bid to boost the city’s nightlife scene and save venues that are at risk of closure. “There’s a lack of budget and a lack of club spaces that are easily accessible in central London,” says Zero. “People are going out more locally.”
Listening bars, meanwhile, are booked out. There’s a month-long wait for a Friday night table for two at Bambi. Elsewhere, Jumbi’s website simply reads: “On Fridays and Saturdays the latest booking slot is 9pm. We do not offer queue jump or guest list.” Consider yourself told.
“The nice thing about Jumbi is you can go there to meet a friend, have a bite to eat, and end up throwing it down until 2am,” says Zero, confirming the collective leaning towards communal spaces over more traditional sweat-drenched dancefloors. “It segues into going ‘out out’ later that night, if you want to,” he adds.
An evening that could go anywhere - it’s what we’ve always been best at.
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