Bridge Street Sound is a collaboration between you and your partner Juju–what roles do you two take on for your business?

I founded BSS initially to brand my custom builds, and initially was even building furniture under the title. I’m not that business-minded so it took Juju coming on board to help brand everything and direct the project, in terms of our goals and ambitions. I’m definitely on the sound-system side of BSS, but that’s only one half of the project. Juju and I met deejaying and have been playing together for years. We share many interests musically and culturally, and the idea for BSS is to reflect those in endeavors outside of just speaker commissions. The past years have been so time consuming and exhaustingly ‘all hands on deck’ just to get our whole set-up together, but hopefully these next years will allow us some space to branch out.

What’s the story of how you first started designing sound systems?

I built my first system at school in 2016/17. I was studying visual arts, primarily sculpture, and I was pretty interested in sound, especially integrating it into my work. I’d collected records since high school, was starting to deejay, and was confident enough in my wood-working. I built two systems during undergrad: the first was an impressive and hilarious failure, ridiculously oversized — built to impress, though definitely not sonically. The second pair were dupe Cornwalls using Bob Crites parts, and I used them for a sound/performance piece. I built a machine to engrave my own tracks into melted down and repressed records, then performed a set isolated from the audience, with the system as the main actor, mixing those tracks along with a few selections that were meant to create something of a self-portrait.

After school, I moved back to NYC and got thrown into the whirlpool of trying to stay afloat. I was working three jobs until Covid happened. I lost my job working at a woodshop, so I started taking on my own projects and people quickly started commissioning me for some smaller systems. Everything grew from there.

What sets your sound systems and design practice apart from what’s already out there?

It’d be a tall claim to say that my sound system practice is unique. My backgrounds in deejaying and visual arts definitely define my work, and those experiences influence my approach to everything I do. Then on the other end, I take some pride in my craft, just knowing I’m in the minority of builders who are both on the design and fabrication end of the process. Having a hand in designing, sourcing, building, finishing, tuning; I think that level of involvement has taught me a lot across the board.

Beyond that, we’ve been working so hard to get to where we are today with our studio, there’s so much freedom with just having space. Freedom to learn and experiment and think. It’s really helped me define my intentions, just being more committed to a philosophical approach with the craft. I’m not sure it’s always the best business plan, but that said, we’re not aspiring to become a speaker brand in that we’ll never have a product available off the shelf. We’re interested in remaining bespoke and taking on jobs that resonate with us. Maybe something will come of this that will set us apart when it’s all said and done.

Your new studio looks fantastic and has been in the works for about a year now. Can you walk us through the design process for your new studio, and what kind of experience you want to create for visitors?

I think big cities everywhere are in a tough spot these days. Speaking to friends elsewhere, I’m very grateful for everything we (myself/BSS and Mo Yasin) have here. I’m born in NYC and was working out of my dad’s shop until recently when I just started taking up too much space. His space always influenced and inspired me, it’s a time-capsule in that it represents a New York that no longer exists, he’s been there since 1984. But the character of a space always felt so important to me. I was getting depressed thinking about moving into a studio building full of other ‘creatives’ overpaying for paper thin walls and shared bathrooms, mostly because working with sound and big tools, I could foresee all the constraints. I was looking at Newark before finding what we have now in East NY.

It was very raw when we first looked at it, 3000 square feet with no walls, no plumbing, no heat, just two outlets, and missing windows. A dream come true as far as I was concerned, that’s essentially the space that I grew up in. But it was a big risk and a big job. Mo and I had been talking around that time about the struggles and inconveniences of developing a sound system practice with so little agency in New York. Your work can get so suffocated here, and we were both really feeling that, so we checked out the space and it felt like if not here and now, then when and where? We took the floorpan and looked at all the conditions of what we wanted to do and how we could accommodate them all. So we have two private offices/music studio, a storage room, a kitchenette, a woodshop, and a showroom/listening room.

Our goal is to create a lab that can accommodate the whole ecosystem of a sound system practice, from speaker fabrication, to production, to recording, to tuning, to spinning, to dance. One leads to the next, which leads to the next, and to have it all contained within a singular space allows for experimentation and fine-tuning that we’ve only dreamed of. On the visitor end it’s a space of business first, so while everything is modular, there is usually seating in the middle of the floor with selections of our rental inventory showcased opposite the DJ booth. We do our best to keep it presentable and comfortable, where clients can come to experience our offerings, whether they’re interested in producing an event or commissioning sound.

Your work seems to place a heavy emphasis on community and collaboration; Bridge Street Sound as a partnership and an event space for friends, 7×7 with Mo Yasin, and your time as a DJ. Tell us about that relationship between music and the people around you–was sound always a social activity for you?

Funnily it started as the opposite, my journey with sound and my love for all of this felt very independent from the people around me for the longest time. It was very much “my thing” with friends growing up, which I didn’t necessarily mind. It allowed for a lot of imagination in terms of what might exist out there, and almost an antiquated means of finding my place in this world. My first deejay gig/residency I got through my mom’s friend who was a bartender at the old Studio 151, which is practically where Juju grew up and where we met. Since then, every pivotal impression, all my growth, and every lasting connection has been founded in human exchange. I value that a lot and I think everything we do aspires to keep sound as a social experience, existing outside of the dynamics of consumer nightlife and social media.