OPEN
THE
BOXES.
Not everything in an archive needs a finished story.
Sometimes the artefact is enough to begin with.
This isn't the tidy version.
Handwritten lyrics sit beside studio paperwork. Release artwork sits beside screenshots. Photographs remember things their subjects had forgotten. Some objects already have stories; others are still waiting for theirs.
The archive preserves the difference between what is known, what is remembered and what still needs explaining.
HANDWRITTEN
Lyrics, drafts, crossings-out and pages that were never intended to become exhibits.
Sweet London River
Written beside the Thames as a possible Poems on the Underground submission.
Has Anyone Seen My Son?
A surviving handwritten lyric sheet, complete with date and final punchline.
Force of Habbit
Working lyrics, performance instructions and corrections preserved on the page.
Honey Tree
Early handwritten words survive alongside the later released versions.
PAGES
The lyric pile
Splashdown, Hunted by Dreams, Nightshift, Diesel Train, Woman Come Again and other surviving sheets still being catalogued.
STUDIO &
RECORDING
The paperwork behind the sound.
War is Over
8-track information and equipment notes from the Music City sessions.
Music City
The studio on Paul's road where a sleeping child, lost MIDI settings and a quick equipment test became part of a song's history.
Soundcheck
Started as a software test in a loft. It eventually became a released single and a UK EDM platform-chart number one.
LIVE
Stages, collaborators and moments that happened once.
Across the Stage
Two photographs accidentally form their own shot and reverse-shot.
GANG
MUSICA
Monsieur Jacques
A surviving performance photograph points toward another part of the archive still to be unpacked.
ARCHIVE
Stages & rooms
Not every performance has yet found its date, venue or full story.
RELEASES
Artwork, remasters, remixes and evidence of what happened after the music left the room.
Honey Tree
One song, multiple lives: original release, radio-edit remaster and Amruze DnB remix.
We Bring You Over
Recovered artwork, lyrics and surviving release history.
Number 1 on Number 1
The surviving screenshot puts Soundcheck at #1 in NumberOneMusic's UK EDM chart.
PEOPLE &
PLACES
The archive is also a map of who was there and where things happened.
What's It All For?
A complete surviving Tear release: original artwork, personnel and all four recordings — What's It All For?, Lonely Rider, Dinner and Rivers Run Dry.
OPEN THE ARCHIVE EXHIBIT →
Amruze at the Controls
From keyboards and cameras to Lemon Fresh, Amruze and the Honey Tree remix.
I'm Better Now
A holiday photograph becomes homemade CD artwork — with a deliberately sarcastic title.
The Guitar That Came Back
A sold guitar returned for a gig and changed considerably more than the set list.
PEOPLE WHO PASSED
THROUGH THE MUSIC
Not everything on paulcruse.com was Paul Cruse music. Over the years the site also became home to recordings by friends, collaborators and musicians whose paths crossed mine. Some of those original pages survive.
Amruze
Paul's son Sam developed his own musical identity as Lemon Fresh and later Amruze, creating the 2019 Honey Tree DnB remix alongside an independent catalogue of his own.
JONES
Trevor Jones
A friendship running from the days of Tear through Trevor's solo work and The Few — with an unexpected appearance behind the electronic drums in the old Honey Tree video.
VISIT THE ORIGINAL PAGE →Alive
A surviving Trevor recording recovered from the old Cruse Control server — and, from memory, possibly Paul's favourite Trevor track.
FEW
The Few
A later band featuring Trevor Jones that came remarkably close to a major-label deal before the story changed direction.
VISIT THE ORIGINAL PAGE →FRESH
Lemon Fresh
An earlier part of Sam's musical path, preserved here through one of the original paulcruse.com artist pages.
VISIT THE ORIGINAL PAGE →SIMANTOV
Nitsan Simantov
A photographer, filmmaker and musician whose work found its way onto the site through a much older friendship.
VISIT THE ORIGINAL PAGE →EARLY
RECORDINGS
Some of the old files still play. These are surviving recordings from earlier layers of paulcruse.com — left as recordings, not polished into new releases.
SHINE
Nightshine
An early recording preserved in the original site files.
IS
OVER
War Is Over
The archive retains three related files: the main version, an alternate vocal version and an instrumental.
VERSION
War Is Over
VERSION
War Is Over (vers)
MENTAL
War Is Over (instr)
→
2007
Hunted By Dreams
A December 1987 song survives as an acoustic preservation recording and a 2007 electric/electronic sketch — along with the working files that show the later version being built.
FOLLOW THE SONG →SPLIT
3
Minor Split 3
One of the old Soundcheck-labelled files still present in the archive.
Sound
An early Paul Cruse recording historically grouped with the Soundcheck material.
2
Soundcheck 2
Another surviving file from the early Soundcheck-labelled recordings.
Tune
A surviving Paul Cruse recording from the same early archive.
BUTION
Contribution
A Paul Cruse recording. An old paulcruse.com page presented the track under “Fashionable Christians”; that historical label is retained here rather than silently rewritten.
Eights
Born from an experiment with musical ideas learned through Duncan Lorien’s seminars — part of an unlikely 2002–03 crossover between Paul’s music and Cruse Control.
BEFORE IT
WAS LOST
A rough audio companion to the handwritten archive: old songs, fragments and explanations recorded so the material would not disappear.
THE DEEP
ARCHIVE.
Unfinished songs. Unidentified rooms. Old web pages. Photographs whose stories haven't been told yet. Handwriting that needs deciphering. Things that looked insignificant until another artefact made them important.
NOT EVERYTHING
HAS TO BE SOLVED.