Couple who Cling together, sing together

9:46am Friday 8th February 2008

A MUSIC duo is celebrating after netting over 300 downloads which have generated them over $250 in less than a week through an online music website.

Vocalist and lyricist Susi Lavender and music programmer and producer Gerald Patient have been writing and producing songs together as Cling' for over three years.

Gerald, 50, said: "I was born in Epping and involved in the music industry for many years. Susi was born in Africa (Zimbabwe) and is still influenced by the nature and culture in which she grew up.

"She has been in the UK for 15 years. We've been together as a couple for five years and as Cling for three years."

The couple, of Tower Road, Epping, met when Susi was looking for a music producer and vocal coach and Gerald was looking for someone who could sing and write lyrics with an edge, with someone who was on the right wavelength'.

They soon realised they had much more in common than just music and although they briefly lost contact, they met again through a mutual acquaintance and have been clinging together ever since', which is what inspired the name of their duo band.

Gerald said: "We first came across Tunesquare.com, a new ad-supported music download site somewhere in between the world of illegal P2P sites and paid-for download services such as iTunes and Rhapsody, on Boxing Day and decided to upload our début CD, Sonic Spells, onto it to see how it would go."

Susi, 30, said: "A couple of years ago we started putting our music online and soon discovered MySpace where we now have over 20,000 friends and the most wonderful comments from all over the world.

"We even had one from world famous chillout DJ Mixmaster Morris. He found a copy our CD, Sonic Spells, in the Big Chill Bar in London. We still don't know how it got there and he took it home and played it and left us a comment saying he liked it and it was good work.

"We still find it amazing we can earn just as much if not more money by giving our music away in this way, and it's very easy for music fans to get the music they want with no registration and then be able to burn them to a CD or be played on an MP3 player."