Somewhere in Wellington in the middle of 1997, a young selector called Cuffy started putting records together for anyone who would listen. Within three years that habit had taken him to Dublin as part of the 2000 intake of the Red Bull Music Academy. It was an early sign that a scene at the bottom of the Pacific could hold its own against anyone.
Back home, Cuffy became a familiar name in New Zealand's clubs. In Auckland he played Ink Bar, Wyndham Bowling Club, Centro, Mesh, Calibre and Coast, rooms that defined the city's house nights at the turn of the millennium. His sets kept leading him overseas too. He played alongside Jonathan Yeo at Zouk in Singapore, Terry Farley at The Kitchen in Dublin, Derrick May at Fix in Sydney and FC Kahuna, and he shared a night with Dano at DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Few New Zealand DJs of his generation could point to a run like that.
The most lasting part of Cuffy's story, though, is his partnership with Leon D. The two teamed up in 1999, pooling their gear and their knowledge to build a sound of their own. They became one of the cornerstones of Reliable Recordings, New Zealand's first label devoted entirely to house music. Reliable was run by Joost Langeveld with Roger Perry as part of the Kog Transmissions family in Kingsland, Auckland. Between 1999 and 2004 it gave the country's producers somewhere to put out club records that sat comfortably next to imports from Chicago, New York and London.
Cuffy & Leon D's tracks turned up throughout that era. They appeared on Reliable's EP series and on its Algorhythm and Sun Valley Sound compilations. They featured on New Zealand collections such as The Gathering and Loop, and on mix CDs and samplers that carried local house to a wider audience. In 2002 Reliable released their Slyboom EP, a confident set of warm, groove-heavy cuts that remains one of the label's best-loved records. On the second volume of Sun Valley Sound the pair delivered "Your Love", which features vocals from Anthony Gold and was mixed by Leon D at the Ariki St studio in Grey Lynn.
Their link with Red Melon came in 2003 through "19c Trumpet". The bright, horn-led groove had already found fans as a Reliable classic, and on Red Melon it was released on vinyl, the original alongside the stripped-back "Trumpapella". The record joined two scenes that understood each other well: the San Francisco house underground and its counterpart in Aotearoa, both built on soul, swing and a love of the groove above everything else.
More than two decades on, the Slyboom EP is still available through the label's digital home, and the duo's records still turn up in the bags of DJs who know where to dig. For Cuffy, it all goes back to that moment in 1997 when the first two records lined up.
