Oblicuo Hi-Fi Bar: Where Barcelona Finds Its Groove in Silence
By Rafi Mercer
New Listing
Oblicuo Hi-Fi Bar is one of Gràcia’s intimate listening spaces — explore more in our Spain Music Venues guide.
Venue Name: Oblicuo Hi-Fi Bar
Address: Carrer de la Riera de Sant Miquel 59, 08006 Barcelona
Instagram: @oblicuohifibar
Website: Oblicuo
Phone: Not publicly listed
Gràcia has always been a little out of step with the rest of Barcelona. Once a separate village, it still carries the feel of independence — narrow streets that resist the grid of Eixample, balconies dripping with plants, plazas where neighbours talk long after the hour says they should be asleep. Into this setting comes a place where rhythm takes a different form: Oblicuo Hi-Fi Bar, a listening space tucked quietly into Carrer de la Riera de Sant Miquel, unassuming at first glance, but unmistakable once inside.
The name, Oblicuo, suggests an angle, a sidestep, a view that is slightly off the main axis. And that is exactly what it offers. In a city that often defaults to volume — to spectacle, to late nights fuelled by relentless beats — Oblicuo chooses another route. It asks you not to shout over the music, but to lean into it. It is a bar built on fidelity, not force.
You notice it as soon as you step through the door. The room is compact, dimly lit, yet suffused with warmth. Wooden panels soften the space, books and vinyl sleeves absorb echoes, while a carefully hand-crafted sound system holds the centre. The speakers are not tucked away in corners; they are placed with intent, angled to shape the air, not merely to fill it. The effect is immediate: sound doesn’t wash over you, it envelopes you, like stepping into a pool where the water rises to meet you at just the right temperature.
The lineage is clear: this is Barcelona’s nod to the Japanese jazz kissaten, those cafés of the 1960s and 70s where imported American jazz records were played at high fidelity to an audience who listened in reverent silence. But Oblicuo is not a copy. It has its own pulse, shaped by the character of Gràcia and by the sensibilities of its founders. The wine list leans towards natural bottles, the sake towards purity, the cocktails towards balance. It is a place where every choice, from liquid to lacquer, feels intentional.
Music here is not background. It is front and centre, but without arrogance. One night you might find a local selector pulling rare spiritual jazz from a crate; another evening might be deep funk, Afrobeat, or Brazilian cuts that unfurl across the evening. The programming isn’t predictable — and that’s the point. You come to Oblicuo not to confirm what you already know, but to be reminded of how much more there is to hear.
The acoustics are key to this experience. In larger venues sound often gets lost, bass swallowing detail, highs bouncing off hard walls. Here, the proportions are human-scaled, the materials chosen for their sonic properties as much as their aesthetics. Conversations continue, but at a lower register, as if the sound itself has recalibrated the room. This is listening as architecture: the music shapes the social geometry, creating a shared awareness that is rare in a city bar.
Spend a few hours here and you start to notice the details. The way the lighting warms as the evening deepens, turning vinyl sleeves into glowing icons. The precision of the bar staff, who pour and shake with the same calm rhythm as the records spinning nearby. The crowd — design students, musicians, older jazz heads, young couples — a mix drawn not by trend but by curiosity. It is a cross-section that feels organic to Gràcia: cosmopolitan but grounded, stylish but unforced.
The bar’s Instagram is its public diary. Posts announce guest selectors, new cocktails, vinyl arrivals. But it also carries the atmosphere: the golden light, the close-set turntables, the moment when a record seems to stop time for everyone in the room. It is through this feed that the outside world glimpses what the inside knows: Oblicuo is not about volume, but depth.
To sit in Oblicuo is to feel the weight of silence differently. It is not absence, but presence — a frame that allows the sound to emerge in full colour. You leave with your ears reset, tuned to detail, alert again to how much richness lives in a single note when it is given space to breathe. In a city built on spectacle, Oblicuo proves that the most lasting memories often come from what happens when the lights are low, the records spin, and the world slows to listen.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
