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What was the pandemic like for you? The Self-Isolating Clouds film


Firstly, to be clear that this film is just about a set of music-makers. So many died or had life- changing experiences and it is essential to acknowledge that before we tell our story.


So, 2020 dawned bright for Cold Bath Street, our journey to explore through improvisation was progressing well, we were playing together regularly, recent concerts and the ‘Return to Earth’ album were being well-received.


As the pandemic progressed, I was asked by UCLan what CBS could do in that period (under government restrictions). As our project was all about getting people together, the answer was pretty clearly ‘nothing’. Quickly jumping ship to advocate the wonders of online solutions wasn't for us. We had to sit it out. We kept in touch and spoke online, practised individually, did some reading and listening.


Time passed. The story for the live music scene wasn’t good: The calendar was empty, previously thriving projects withered, events were cancelled for the long-term, venues closed, some permanently, people took on other work to sustain themselves. Our ‘interaction of people’ simply wasn’t possible, without it life felt very much diminished. After 25 years of near continuous group playing, it felt very wrong. Maybe we were having hammered home to us just how important those interactions are.


More of that oh-so-valuable time passed, restrictions finally relaxed a little: GO! What could we do that would be ‘safe’? I thought about pieces I’d seen by Mobius Loop and a couple of my UCLan colleagues where they had worked spread out across different floors of Preston’s Harris Institute. Initially, my idea was that audience members would be able to move around in a ‘socially distanced’ manner, visiting the different isolated players, however the kibosh was quickly put on this. No audience in the space.


Still we continued - a chance to play on March 21st 2021 was now so valuable. The directions for the players were stark: Improvise to try to express/channel how you have been feeling. Because we were very spread out and we deliberately didn't have any special monitoring or such, we couldn't hear each other well. This was an attempt to represent what life had been like - the impossibility of the close connection vital to so many in their music-making.


On the day, after a short silence in the middle - offering a time to remember - a second section of the piece asked that players move toward the centre of the building, connecting over the physical distance and the echo. I've chosen not to include that section in this film: Looking back, though it was (rightly) added to try and be positive in a difficult time, it wasn’t honestly what I wanted to convey and the resultant section is weak.


Whatever you think about what went on over that period, the truth for CBS was that it was an extremely negative time, difficult and damaging in many ways. Momentum was gone; though kindly supporting my doctorate research sessions to their conclusion, players moved on. Life had to change, a good deal of time had passed. What had been a very strong lineup of the group came to an end, though subsequent iterations would take the project to new creative places, it would be a long uphill fight to get back to a regular active status.


Whatever your experience, we offer this film as time to remember and reflect on that period.




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