Not to be mistaken for the popular song from the movie, Frozen – namely: “Love Is An Open Door” – LIFE Is An Open Door was written a couple of years prior to the aforementioned Disney ‘classic’ for a CGN Songs media commission.
This Memory – 1996
This was an instrumental written as one of my University projects back in 1996. Although a little clumsy in places, production-wise, I like to think that this piece has lasted the test of time rather nicely. Recently rescued from an old DCC tape, it’s nice to have this one back in the fold once again.
Grand Brand – Section – 2010
Grand Brand was a grandiose theme I wrote for a hypothetical high-end car advert.
Fuggers (Opening Credits) – 2010
Ten years ago, my CGN Songs partner, Peter Godfrey, and I, attended the London Premiere of the pilot episode of a sitcom for which we’d written the theme tune. Fuggers was its name, the brainchild of actress, author and ‘creative bohemian’, Vanessa Leah Stevenson. Sadly, it never got properly off the ground, but it was fun putting the quirky music together at the time.
Givin’ It Up (Anlg) – Section – 1998
Back in 1998, my old mate, Nick Rundall, and I, worked on some tracks for a short four track demo with a view to getting these heard via one of Nick’s relatives, who was an influential music industry contact. I forget the singer’s name. She had a nice tone to her voice, but I remember it being quite the battle to adapt her Jazz and Musicals singing style to the more straight forward, tight-groove pop style that we needed. I recall Goldie, Roni Size, and Drum and Bass in general being quite a big influence at the time, and we tried to infuse a flavour of this into our demo, along with some of the mainstream pop sounds of the time, like The Brand New Heavies, Olive and the like. Listening back, there’s plenty I’d have done differently, but the song is pretty strong, radio friendly and has lasted well, I like to think.
Muchly Crutchley (Revisited) – 2013
A fun reggae-influenced theme. Could be used for anything, and was named after my good friend and fellow Friday night footballer, Rob Crutchley. Rob is a bit of a reggae aficionado, so hopefully my lending his name to this piece of light-hearted nonsense is not too offensive to the man’s highly evolved, cultured reggae tastes!
Flexible Films Incidental Theme 1 (Cello Mix) – 2012
A sort of dream-like soundscape of a theme, written to be used for any projects really, but with the kind of background incidental vibe required of some of the Flexible Films projects that I’d been involved with.
Coast Guard (Anlg) – 1996
Acquiring an Akai S2000 sampler in the early-mid 1990s was a game changer in many ways for me, and Coast Guard was a track of which I was rather proud, incorporating as it did sampled string lines, gull sounds, brass stabs and vocal wailing, in conjunction with my trusty Yamaha SY85 library that tended to comprise the bulk of my core sound at that time. It’s taken from an old cassette (Anlg – Analogue) recording which thankfully, twenty-four years later, remains relatively unscathed. I have the original DCC master tape of the track still, but it refuses to play. Rubbish ‘modern’ digital technology.
Benn Gone Barmy (Anlg) – 1993
On listening back to this track in 2020, it dawned on me that I was probably subliminally inspired by a section of incidental music taken from the children’s classic television programme, Mr Benn. (Scroll to 2:33 in the video for the brief theme in question). Granted, it’s only a tenuous likeness, and my track is altogether more deranged, but given that I was a huge fan of the programme as a kid, and can still sing you each and every piece of theme music from it to this day, there’s definitely a strong liklihood that my hunch of subliminal influence is completely accurate.
Fuggers (Closing Credits) – 2010
A slight alteration to the words here for an otherwise identical piece to that recorded for the opening credits.
Hugh Carson Music 