Weekend Listening Plan: A 48-Hour Ritual of Sound, Whisky, and Small Adventures
By Rafi Mercer
It is Friday, which is really another way of saying the room is about to change. The week has been noise and lists and screens. The weekend is for listening, for a handful of small rituals that turn hours into places. Here is what I have planned, and what you are invited to borrow, remap, improve.
Tonight begins at home. Lights low. Ten minutes of quiet before anything plays. Let the room cool, let your shoulders drop, let the mind step out of the lane. Warm the system. If you run valves, flick them on now and wait. That glow is not decoration. It is tempo. While you wait, make the pour. A single large cube for patience. Hibiki Harmony if you have it. Yamazaki 12 if you want honey and wood. Place the glass down. Lower the stylus with care. The first side is Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. Headphones if you want solitude. Speakers if you want to breathe with the room. Do not skip. Remember how silence carries the notes.
Later, something cinematic. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation pairs with a small highball. Suntory time as prelude and permission. Watch how music sets the frame for everything else. Air’s Alone in Kyoto, the city outside the window, your own room quietly borrowing the colour. When the film ends, do not rush to fill the space. Sit with the afterglow. There is a kind of listening that only appears when the music stops.
Saturday morning is for movement. Coffee, then a crate dig. No shopping list. Let the sleeves find you. Follow one thread from your origin album. If Massive Attack’s Blue Lines lives at the core of your collection, drift along the references. Soul, dub, early trip hop, a stray Brian Eno ambient if it winks at you. Hold the records in your hands. Weight matters. Art matters. This is not hoarding. This is future atmosphere.
Afternoon is the systems hour. A simple tune up. Speaker placement by ear rather than tape measure. Nudge, sit, listen, nudge again. Put on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and listen to how the bass occupies the floor. If it booms, bring the speakers forward. If it thins, shift them nearer the wall. Small changes alter the air. If you are building a home listening bar from scratch, audition two different characters. A pair of Klipsch for immediacy. A pair of KEF for imaging. There is no correct answer. There is only the room you live in and the way you want sound to move through it.
Saturday night belongs to people. If you have a true listening bar nearby, go. Order something considered. Nikka From the Barrel for energy. A Highland malt for glow. Notice how the staff handle records. Watch the needle drop. Pay attention to the pace of the pour. If the city does not have a listening bar, make one for a few hours. Invite two friends, not ten. Ask them to bring one record that has a story attached. Side A only. Tell the story before the stylus lands. This is how a room becomes a place.
Sunday morning asks for kindness. Midori Takada’s Through the Looking Glass works here. So does Max Richter’s Sleep in condensed form. Music that turns the house into a sanctuary. Tea in the glass rather than whisky. The ritual remains the same. Quiet first, then sound, then the slow pull back into the day. If you like lists, write what the music changed. One sentence is enough. I heard the room breathe. I felt the week loosen. I remembered why restraint matters.
Sunday afternoon is the practical half of the romance. Clean the stylus. Sleeve the records you bought. Make clear ice for next time. If you need an introduction system for someone who is starting out, assemble a simple out of the box path. A sensible turntable. A quiet phono stage. Active speakers that do not need fussing. The point is to open the door, not to frighten the new listener with specifications. The music will do the convincing. It always does.
Close the weekend with a short album that carries weight. Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is a good final chapter. Short songs with story, voice and piano like two parallel roads that cross at the heart. A small measure in a heavy glass, no ice, no rush. When the record ends, set the arm in its rest and leave the room as it is. Let the weekend linger in the air.
This is not an itinerary as much as a mood. You can swap any piece for another and the shape will hold. Records, whisky, rooms, small gestures that slow you down. A movement begins in the smallest circle. A chair, a glass, a first note. By Monday, you will remember that listening is a skill and that you still have it.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe here, or click here to read more.
