The Kissa Album Library

Rafi Mercer
2026-03-28T11:16:53+00:00

Twenty albums chosen for a home listening bar — sequenced from opening the room to closing the night. The kissa canon, built for a chair, a system, and the decision to sit still.

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Twenty records for a room built around nothing else

There is a shelf in every serious kissa that tells you everything you need to know about the owner.

Not the equipment — the equipment announces itself. The shelf is quieter. It is where the choices live. Decades of them, accumulated without logic or system, ordered only by the internal grammar of someone who has spent a lifetime listening carefully. You scan it the way you read a face. It tells you what kind of evening this will be.

The kissa tradition — the Japanese listening café that emerged in the years after the Second World War, when records were expensive and amplifiers rarer still — was never really about the hardware. It was about the library. The custodian who spent thirty years assembling it. The decisions about what stayed and what didn't. The understanding that certain records reward a room built to receive them, and certain rooms deserve records equal to what they can do.

This is that library. Twenty records chosen not by genre or era but by a single quality: they give you something back when you sit still. When the bass arrives at the volume it was made for. When the space between the notes reveals itself. When the fourth listen finds something the first didn't.

Sequenced the way a kissa owner sequences a night — from the records that open a room to the ones that close it.

Opening the room

These ease you in. Spatial, melodic, unhurried. They ask only that you sit down.

Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959) The beginning of modal jazz and, for most people, the beginning of attentive listening. Nothing here is hurried. Davis plays at a conversational volume and expects you to meet him there. Every kissa in Kyoto has owned a copy of this since it was pressed.

Donald Byrd — The Cat Walk (1961) Before the funk records, before the crossover, there was this — Byrd in a small room with a rhythm section that understood space. It opens quietly and stays there. A room-setter.

Terry Callier — What Color Is Love (1973) Callier made this in Chicago and it sounds like nowhere. Folk, soul, jazz — none of those words quite land. What does land is his voice, which requires good mid-range to carry properly. The first time you hear it on a real system you understand why this record has been quietly passed between serious listeners for fifty years.

Hiroshi Suzuki — Cat (1975) Recorded in Tokyo in 1975 and largely unknown outside Japan until recently. Suzuki plays trombone over arrangements that move between jazz and something more interior — humid, slow, particular. A record that arrived late to most collections and immediately belonged. The bars of Osaka have been playing it for decades.

Marlena Shaw — The Spice of Life (1969) Shaw's voice was built for systems with warmth. This record has never been fashionable and has always been exceptional. Put it on early in the evening before anyone has committed to a mood.

The main hour

Albums that reward full attention. Spatial, complex, made for the volume they were intended at.

Donald Byrd — Street Lady (1973) Where Byrd found the intersection of jazz and early funk and decided to stay. The bass on this record needs a floor. On a real system it arrives differently — not louder, just more present. This is the record that made people understand what a listening room was actually for.

Donald Byrd — Places and Spaces (1975) The most complete thing Byrd made. Arranged by Larry Mizell, produced with a precision that only reveals itself at volume. Layers that don't exist on a phone speaker materialise through a proper system. A record that earns its place in the main hour of any serious listening session.

Masabumi Kikuchi — Poo Sun (1970) Japanese jazz at its most searching. Kikuchi was playing free at a moment when most Japanese jazz was still trying to sound American. This record sounds like neither country, which is exactly why it belongs in a kissa.

Courtney Pine — Journey to the Urge Within (1986) Pine's debut, recorded when he was twenty-three. The urgency in the title is not marketing — it is in the playing. A jazz record made in London that sounds like it was made under pressure, which it was. It rewards volume.

Nujabes — Modal Soul (2005) The record that brought the sound of Tokyo's listening bars to a generation that had never been. Nujabes built this from jazz samples and hip-hop architecture and the result sits precisely at the intersection of both worlds. The most-read album page on this site, which is not a coincidence.

Fela Kuti — Zombie (1977) Not an easy listen. Not designed to be. Fela made this record as a political instrument and the tension in it is physical — it needs the full range of a speaker to carry what it is actually saying. In a listening room it becomes something close to confrontational. That is the point.

Depth and texture

Records built on layers. The kind that sound different on the fourth listen than the first.

David Sylvian — Secrets of the Beehive (1987) The quietest record on this list and possibly the most demanding. Sylvian made this with an almost painful attention to space — what is not played is as considered as what is. Requires a room with good acoustics and a listener with patience. Returns both.

These are the records you hear playing quietly at Bar Martha in Ebisu long after midnight.

Massive Attack — Blue Lines (1991) The record that defined what bass could mean in a domestic space. Bristol, 1991, and a group of people working out what to do with sound when the dancefloor wasn't the destination. The low frequencies on this need a floor that can carry them. On a proper system in a quiet room it sounds like it was made yesterday.

LTJ Bukem — Logical Progression (1996) Drum and bass made for listening rather than dancing, which in 1996 was a radical proposition. Bukem built this from jazz samples and atmospheric textures and the result is a record that exists in the listening room more naturally than almost anything made in its era.

UNKLE — Psyence Fiction (1998) A record that sounds unfinished on small speakers and complete on large ones. The production — Mo' Wax, 1998, everything running through analogue at the last moment before digital took over — has a weight that only a real system reveals. Worth the patience.

Late and low

For the end of a side. Slower, more interior. The records you put on when the room has settled into itself.

Nujabes & Shing02 — Luv(sic) Hexalogy (2015) Six movements made over a decade, completed after Nujabes's death. It should feel unfinished. It doesn't. It feels like a room you return to. Late listening, low volume, the kind of record that makes you aware of where you are sitting.

Murcof — Martes (2002) Fernando Corona made this in Tijuana using classical samples and electronic architecture and the result sounds like neither influence. Cold, precise, and oddly warm in a good room. A record that arrives late in an evening and changes its temperature.

Uyama Hiroto — A Son of the Sun (2008) Hiroto studied under Nujabes and this record carries that lineage without copying it. Flute-led, unhurried, built for the hour when conversation has stopped and the room is doing the work. Plays correctly at low volume, which is rarer than it sounds.

Jamie xx — In Colour (2015) A record about memory and distance that sounds exactly like both. The bass frequencies here were designed for large systems but behave differently in a small listening room — more intimate, more present. Worth positioning the chair for.

Cautious Clay — Blood Type (2018) The most recent record on this list and the one that most directly inherits the kissa canon — jazz structure, electronic texture, a voice that requires good mid-range to arrive properly. The record you are most likely to hear in the newer bars of Seoul right now. The tradition is not finished.

What makes a listening room record?

Not genre. Not era. A listening room record gives you something back when you sit still — where the bass arrives differently at volume, where the space between notes is as considered as the notes themselves, where the fourth listen reveals something the first didn't. Every record on this list was chosen for that quality alone.

Do I need vinyl to use this list?

No. These albums are available on every streaming platform. Vinyl imposes a ritual — flipping sides, cleaning records, committing to forty minutes — that supports the listening bar practice, but a well-configured streaming set-up through a proper amplifier will outperform a mid-range turntable on most of these recordings.

Where do I go after this list?

The 50 best albums for deep listening extends the canon further. And the home listening bar guide covers the room, the system, and the ritual that makes any of this worth doing.

Every month, The Listening Club gathers around the world. Join here.

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe or click here to read more.