Sleeve Notes: Kevin Griffiths On Tsuba Loves

It's been a wee while since we've had an opportunity to get the curatorial perspective of some of our favourite musical compendiums, but with the forthcoming Tsuba Records takeover of Room Three this weekend and impending release of label head Kevin Griffiths 'Tsuba Loves...' compilation a timely opportunity arose. In this Sleeve Notes feature he’s picked out five of his personal highlights from the release and shared the sounds and his reasonings which you can enjoy for yourselves below. 1. Cantona Kung Fu I came up with the title before the track, something i tend to do with ease, it’s the music that takes a little time! This is a deep, groovy little number and the perfect vibe for a warm up set, something I’ve done a lot of over the years and still one of my favourite parts of the night to play. It allows you to set the tone of the room and also play lots of deep records that otherwise would be hard to fit in (Yes I am on warm up duties on 9th November :-). This track did really well and was No2 in the deep house chart on Beatport for a month and Steve Bug included it on his Lab compilation album. It was also the first Tsuba Colours release on yellow vinyl and backed with a great mix from Sascha Dive. 2. Midnight Special Myself and good friend Justin Drake made this for the 5 Years Of Tsuba release. It has a fantastic bassline, very much influenced by Chicago House, and it pretty much defines the track. Its always a lot of fun making music with Mr Drake, it feels like the pressure’s off so we tend to just have a laugh and enjoy the process. The track title has also spawned a side project of the same name; we released one 12” late last year and have pretty much finished the follow up which will come out early 2014. 3. Enjoy The Bozak This was the B2 from my Elements EP. When I first went record shopping I used to love finding 12”s with gems tucked away on the B side, so this was the aim with this track. I was listening to a lot of Steffi at the time and wanted a timeless feel with a hooky and emotive bassline. 4. Oh Yeah I’m a real sucker for strong percussion and pretty much every track I’ve produced usually has a bongo or conga line chugging away in the background. This track was released in 2010 when the whole Manheim sound was quite big and is a rolling, loopy number which works during the main part of a set, so is a nice contrast to the deep stuff. This whole period was quite defining for the sound of Tsuba and I released singles from Sascha Dive and Federico Molinari around the same time. 5. Jaguar Shoes This bleepy little number was my first ever foray into production and was something Sasha played a lot at time. The whole track is underpinned by a jackin’ housey bassline with a mandolin style riff, pretty simple really. A promoter in Mexico City loved it so I got booked off the back of this one track, so that really demonstrated the importance of releasing records in order to get DJ bookings! Ripperton provided a fantastic housey remix on the B side. 6. Los Pollos Hermanos Another track made with the warm up in mind, this time from my last EP. I’ve been getting more into a slower tempo of house music of late and have been listening to lots of Weatherall sets and Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space show. This one is a definite head nodder and comes with a top video from We Are Wheels. 7. Mojib’s Imperial Named after my local curry house in Rusthall, a small village where I live in Kent, this is a brand new track recorded especially for the album. It continues where ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’ left off so is a slo-mo chugger, a theme I’ll be continuing to explore in future productions. Its been mastered at the moment, so the clip will be coming soon………