It all started in December 2023 with a livestream by a group of soon-to-be collaborators, featuring DJ sets played back to back across time zones – between the city of Shibetsu in northern Hokkaido and Gothenburg on the Swedish West Coast. A get-together by a group of music enthusiasts interested in cultivating creative spaces and relationship building on a global scale.

Sound Bridge started parallel to a handful of artistic collectives and sonic collaborations we had been part of at the time. We joined forces to create exciting projects like releasing music and publications, curating exhibitions, and playing live. All coming from different angles and practices: music production, DJing, journalism, cultural research, architecture, visual arts, graffiti, and design. Samuel Michaëlsson and Yosuke Tsuga had already been working on a live-streaming installation at OPI in Stockholm, and Yosuke, at the time, was in contact with a DJ collective in Hokkaido.

Livestreamed from Studio Papp in Gothenburg and Music Bar Site in Shibetsu, we connected over an afternoon and evening through curated music, short presentations, heartfelt gestures, live talks, and dancing. Happening in publicly accessible places, people dropped by and joined as engaged audiences. The experiment was soul-warming, as if we had really met. New connections and friendships were established. A mutual connection and feeling: sound as a shared culture.