For years, Tsuruda has been lurking in the depths of underground bass music, steadily refining his craft. Known for his bleeding-edge sound design and genre bending tunes, the long-haired distortion architect recently released a vicious EP aptly titled FUBAR that absolutely shattered our expectations. This gentle human makes music as tough as nails, wrangles low ends like no other, and fashions forward-thinking releases that span from his older lo-fi beats to his latest work under his alter-ego, cousin litt. His tracks have rumbled the thickest sound systems that money can buy and wrecked the boundaries that define bass music as we know it.
Although Tsuruda has largely kept to the shadows, we had the honor of catching up with him on the tail end of his FUBAR Tour.
How did you get involved with Courteous Family?
Courteous Family was started by my two friends Tristan & Anton. They were actually some of my first friends in LA. I remember I was visiting there looking for apartments on Facebook and was like “do I know any homies in LA?” They’d just moved there and liked my music and we’re just like “yo come through, smoke a spliff, let’s kick it.” They told me about their vision and I really fucked with it.
Do they produce?
Yeah, they both produce. One produces under Hapa and the other one is Courteous Tone and he does more live instrumentations. First buds in LA and they wanted to start some shit and they’re still some of my best friends. I feel like I’ll always be homies with them because of music.
What parts of your music education do you find the most useful in your current productions? Which parts havenât proven to be useful?
As weird as it is, I went to school for classical singing against my will. I really didn’t even want to do it, but my mom went to one of the concerts and she loved it, so she put me and my two sisters up in there. I’m so grateful I did. I honestly don’t think I’d be anywhere near the level I am right now without that training as a kid because most of that was ear training. Selecting samples and song structure is like second nature because my ears were trained throughout my childhood.
Have you ever sampled your own voice?
I used to and yeah, sometimes. I don’t have a proper microphone so I don’t get down on it that much, but you can translate a lot from singing structure into a song. It’s all the same. Structure-wise it really helps finding the key signatures and pitch of a sample after all that training.
Do you play any instruments?
Honestly the laptop is my instrument. I can’t really play anything super well. I was always trying different instruments in high school. I wanted to play upright bass and bass guitar, electric guitar… harmonica I got really into randomly. I think I was 16 or so when I got my first MPC and that was my instrument.
Whatâs the most slept on Ableton feature?
Hmmm, there’s so many. My favorite thing right now with Ableton 10 is the Drum Buss. I’m not sure if it’s that slept on, but I do see a lot of my homies on it. You can get your shit sounding really nice with that. I feel like Corpus is really underrated too. Honestly, the Saturator too. There’s different little features in it that you kinda have to delve into and mess with, but can really change up the noise.
What’s the most slept on Saturator knob?
Waveshaper.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot more of my own digital synthesis because I’ve been a sample head my whole life and it’s been really refreshing to learn a new set of skills.
Your sound design constantly challenges my understanding of whatâs possible. What portion of your tracks typically use samples vs digital synthesis vs hardware?
Lately I’ve been doing a lot more of my own digital synthesis because I’ve been a sample head my whole life and it’s been really refreshing to learn a new set of skills. I’ll still resample those digital noises and mess with them in audio, but yeah. Lately the majority of my tracks have been digital synthesis, but if I can get my hands on a Euro rack or anything like that and they’re cool with letting me take home the noises… I’m all about that.
Who are some of your favorite under-the-radar producers right now?
This guy, Gangus! Literally almost my entire friend group.
How about non-Courteous Fam?
Chee should be a god. Jason Wool (Woolymammoth). X&G, my boys from Salt Lake… so incredible. Gotta shoutout Noer the Boy, KIN, Herzeloyde, TEK.LUN & Gravez… all criminally underrated.
Speaking of TEK.LUN, you recently rinsed his track ‘les elephants’ along with some other house tracks and even released one with Carmack recently. What kind of house music do you like to listen to?
Imma be honest, I barely listen to music these days. I spend a lot of my time listening to obscure things to sample and talk radio and shit like that. My favorite stuff to listen to is what my friends make. It’s been such a long road of production and constantly hearing music… I don’t really dig like I should.
Loved the Apex Legends sample on ‘Caustic’.
Literally made five other Apex tracks because the vocals are just so easy to slice. The next Tsuruda thing I’m dropping is a little group of those songs; all just ignorant slaps. Dubstep always has some weird little vocal shit. I’ve watched King of the Hill episodes looking for some funny ones.
Who do you main on Apex?
Pathfinder, all day.
Why Pathfinder?
That grapple man. Once you get used to it… it’s like when you don’t have it, it’s a handicap. I’ll play Gibraltar cause he’s fire this season. Wraith is tight. Typical Pathfinder main though. Drop in solo, toxic as fuck.
You also sampled Yu Yu Hakusho on FUBAR, yeah?
Yeah, it’s like my favorite anime. A lot of people come up to me… I guess the correct term is “weeb”, and they’ll start spitting all this anime… I know the anime I like, but I don’t really love anime the way that people think I do which is funny.
Which ones do you dabble with?
Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, Attack on Titan, Samurai Champloo, etc.
Whatâs it been like living, touring & collaborating with Carmack?
(Jokingly) It’s been a nightmare. Nahh, it’s been chill. Honestly shoutout my other roommates, ONHELL, PJ (Promnite)… Not gonna lie after living with them and working with them, my confidence in the studio with other people has drastically increased to where I’ve pretty much learned to not care. I’ve learned how to work a lot better with others and on other people’s studio setups. We all have our own style of music that we’re tryna do, so it’s cool to come together and make something. Lately everyone’s been touring so much and no ones home.
I was trying to put my own twist on what’s popping right now
Would love to chat about FUBAR for a second. What inspired the project?
I wanted to write an EP/album/project where you could upload every song to a USB and play it in a club. And… I think I kinda nailed it. It’s pretty much there. That was my direction. For that, you gotta pay attention to what music trends are happening and I was trying to put my own twist on what’s popping right now. A lot of that is dubstep, half-time and stuff, so I kinda just took those genres and put my own spin on them.
You’ve been pushing that half-time wave.
I’ve been more focused making that 140-150 dubstep. Haven’t been making too much half-time lately.
These songs are… you know… fucked. In the best way possible.
Where did the name FUBAR come from?
I was watching Saving Private Ryan hungover on my couch for the millionth time and they keep bringing up the word FUBAR. “Fucked up beyond all recognition” or “repair.” These songs are… you know… fucked. In the best way possible.
Word on the street is thereâs a cousin litt album in the works. Can you tell us anything about it? Will there be any rappers featured?
That’s all up in the works right now. I’m honestly debating dropping it as Tsuruda, but I don’t know. I don’t know if you know Kenny Beats; he went from LOUDPVCK to his Kenny Beats shit. I just kinda teased the idea that cousin litt could be that one day.
Could be a rap producer?
Yeah, for sure. It has a cool name and I definitely have a lot of fun making those style of beats.
How do you decide what goes out under cousin litt vs. Tsuruda?
Honestly, I really don’t know. I’ve been trying to brand Tsuruda as more of an electronic, bass heavy act. Since I haven’t really had a debut release on cousin litt, I just wanted to make it different and special, like that OG lofi sound that I’ve been making for years, just refined with really cool rappers. Honestly working with rappers is not my forte. It’s hard enough for me to work with other producers, let alone rappers that are apparently some of the hardest people to work with. I’m envisioning for the first cousin litt album seeing a bunch of my friends who rap on those tracks just to get shit poppin’.
Do you find you ever have songs that don’t fit under either the cousin litt or Tsuruda umbrellas?
Yeah, I have a group of those songs that I’m imagining for like a masterpiece, like if I ever make a Flying Lotus type Tsuruda project, but everyone wants a certain sound and I’m just tryna be myself and still cater to what the kids want.
Can we expect any more PAINT releases in the future? Are there any hints of other collaborative projects down the road?
We have a couple tracks that we haven’t put out but I’ve been so busy managing the Tsuruda project and developing this cousin litt project and everything else in between that I barely have time to collab with anyone right now. I was thinking about doing a Huxley Anne x Tsuruda tour where we could do a PAINT set at the very end. I think that’d be really tight. She’s awesome to work with and has so many good ideas about the art involved and the visual aspects of curating a show.
 I didn’t blow up and get this amazing team that took care of everything I did; I had to do everything myself.
Whatâs something you wish someone told you when you first started producing music?
That’s a really philosophical question. Honestly, stay in school… which I didn’t do. But stay in school and know your shit about business. Fuck learning about music theory in school. Learn business and how to operate a business. In today’s world if you wanna do music, you’re basically operating your own business and I don’t know shit about operating a business. Definitely set me back hard, not knowing the ins and outs of things. I didn’t blow up and get this amazing team that took care of everything I did; I had to do everything myself. I wish I not only stayed in school but studied how the economy works and shit like that. It’s so important to know all those things. Stay in school. Don’t trip. You can get done with college in your early twenties and that’s perfect. You don’t wanna blow up that young. It’s hard to really keep it going throughout your whole life. Pace yourself. Learn all the shit you don’t wanna learn.
Alright, gonna throw some quick-fire ones at you. How long have you been flipping a kendama for?
Since 2017.
Favorite sound system youâve ever played on?
Commonwealth, Las Vegas has a really awesome small Void system. It’s my favorite system to play on. It’s perfectly tuned.
Favorite fruit?
Pineapple.
Large venues, small venues, or festivals?
200 cap, dark, small, intimate venue.
If you could only play one instrument for the rest of your life, which would it be?
If you take the laptop out of the equation? A Rhodes keyboard. It sounds pleasant, even if you don’t hit the right notes.
Does the “perfect” song exist?
Yes. Almost the entire Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus. I feel like there’s a lot of perfect songs on there. They’re so imperfect that to me, they’re perfect.
Major or minor?
Minor.
Clipping or nah?
Yes. Clip it then bring it down. Honestly working with Carmack completely changed up how I do my mixdowns. I’ll do what he does and then bring everything down at the same time so it still has that super loud noise but it’s like hitting -3db so you can properly master it.
Do you master your own tracks?
Lately yeah. A lot of the masters I’ve gotten back from people I’m not too stoked on. But I’ve learned a lot since other people have mastered my shit. It’s just in a constant state of progression. Even to this day I’m just trying to get better / getting better. And then I think I’ll be good, but then I’ll go listen back to a track from a year ago and think damn, that was the sweet spot.
Headphones or speakers?
Laptop speakers.
Mixing in mono or stereo?
Stereo, but I actually have a perforated ear drum (or had one). It’s hard for me to hear shit out of this ear. I don’t even notice it until I’m in front of speakers. But a lot of my tracks do end up sounding mono because the whole right side is a little weird to me so I’ll mix things down more mono. But stereo mixdowns all day. Slap a utility on and turn it to mono just to make sure there’s not any weird phasing going on.
Living in LA for this shit kinda wears on you after awhile, but it’s nice. There’s a nice creative energy there. It’s cool to be a part of it.
If you couldn’t do music, what would you be doing?
Honestly, I would be living out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe raising some livestock, running a forge. Going snowboarding as much as I could. Maybe teach. I don’t know. Anything that would get me out of a big city. Living in LA for this shit kinda wears on you after awhile, but it’s nice. There’s a nice creative energy there. It’s cool to be a part of it.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee!
What’s the last song you had stuck on repeat?
This is kind of an interesting one but… ‘Wrecking Ball’ by PEEKABOO. I was listening to that over and over referencing that song and honestly I really like all the shit that dude does. It sounds really great. Shoutout PEEKABOO.
Keep your eyes peeled for more ear candy from “the boi named tsu” leaking its way into your SoundCloud likes and be sure to dive into the rest of Courteous Family’s sound.
