My friend Alex was telling me about
audio bars in Japan — these small spaces where you go to listen to recorded music. Some of them are clubs (where apparently owners can get sent to jail if patrons are caught dancing?!) but a lot of them are just places for sitting. Alex went to a classical one, for example.
Those seem like amazing spaces, but I’m most interested in how much attention is paid to music in this situations. Having a place (and a ritual?) raises the value of music that, in many cases, they could just get on their phones.