BEHIND THE MUSIC

STORIES

The people, circumstances and odd turns behind the recordings — the part that a streaming catalogue can never really tell.

Paul Cruse with the sold and returned guitar
NEW STORY • OBJECTS WITH A HISTORY

THE GUITAR THAT CAME BACK

I sold a guitar. My future wife bought it. Then an ITV Telethon gig invitation arrived and I phoned to ask if I could borrow the guitar back.

That phone call changed rather more than the gig.

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NEW STORY • THE NEXT GENERATION

AMRUZE AT THE CONTROLS

Childhood keyboards and an intense interest in television lead forward to Lemon Fresh, Amruze, professional video work — and eventually a drum-and-bass remix of Honey Tree.

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Young Amruze at the controls
Romina Cavalaro looking across the stage at Paul Cruse
NEW STORY • LIVE

ACROSS THE STAGE

Paul playing guitar. Romina Cavalaro singing. One glance caught by the camera — and a photograph Paul's Mum would keep on her windowsill for years.

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NEW STORY • RECORDING

WAR IS OVER

Just after midnight at Music City in New Cross: Sam sleeps through the A2 and wakes up in the silence of the vocal booth. Paul writes a song in minutes to test the studio. A week later, one missing set of MIDI settings changes everything.

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Paul and Sam during the War is Over recording session
Paul Cruse in Cozumel around 1996 — the photograph used for I'm Better Now
NEW STORY • c.1996

I'M BETTER NOW

A Cozumel photograph became artwork for a CD made for a friend. The title sounded reassuring. It was meant sarcastically — and somehow the phrase kept coming back.

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NEW STORY • HONEY TREE • JOHANNESBURG

THE CAMEL SADDLE

The camera recorded everybody in Johannesburg except Paul. Much later, the missing footage led to one last shoot beside Moor Park station, an eBay handover — and something unexpected in the boot of an old Escort.

Some stories should not be over-explained.

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Honey Tree artwork
NEW STORY • DUNCAN LORIEN • CRUSE CONTROL

EIGHTS

Two trips to America. A waterfront home near Boston. A database company promoting music seminars in Waterloo. Then one augmented-chord experiment became a song.

Sometimes the business and the music were not separate worlds at all.

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Duncan Lorien teaching at the Understanding of Music seminar
NEW STORY • 1987 → 2007

HUNTED BY DREAMS

A handwritten song survives as a rough acoustic recording. Twenty years after the page was dated, the same song is rebuilt with electric guitar, bass, electronic drums, a keyboard sample — and a sequence of working files called i20 try.

One song. Two approaches. Twenty years.

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HUNTED
BY
DREAMS
LONDON • 1991

Sweet London River

A poem written on a floating pier beside the Thames as a possible Poems on the Underground submission. It wasn't selected. The original handwritten page survived.

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Original Sweet London River manuscript
FROM THE LOFT TO #1

Soundcheck

Written in minutes as a literal software test, accidentally genre-certified in a coffee shop, and later number one on NumberOneMusic's UK EDM chart.

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Soundcheck at number one on NumberOneMusic