"The music will play on in these crazy times..."

Inspired by lockdown; Composed, performed and produced by Mike and Kim Cypher; Demonstrating the power of music to bring people together, raise spirits and create a moment of escapism in these crazy times.

"A timepiece to remember these crazy times"
Lindsey Huchrak - West Wilts Radio

“The carnivalesque production encapsulates the strength, vibrance and spirit of human connection in the face of adversity.”
Jo Betteridge - The Cheltenham Post

"WOW, I love it! It has already found a place in my personal collection"
Ronnaldo - Swing City Radio Pennsylvania

"My favourite Kim Cypher track so far. On my playlist now"
John Oldham - ex BBC Introducing / Community Radio

Crazy times indeed...and so I am pleased to announce the release of my lockdown inspired, original track 'Crazy Times' - an expression of the confusion and frustration as the world was plunged into lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The story behind 'Crazy Times' and how the project evolved is a real testament to the incredible kindness in the world. It also celebrates the fact that the music will play on, something all musicians feel incredibly passionate about right now. So, 'Crazy Times' has grown into an amazing community project and the video captures a very special moment in life that will be cherished forever.

Here's the incredible story behind 'Crazy Times'...

As the world was plunged into lockdown, there was an overwhelming sense of confusion as everybody tried to make sense of the situation and work out how this global pandemic would affect their lives. As musicians, instantly all our gigs were cancelled, our livelihood was wiped out and our sense of identity was put into question. We were overwhelmed with sadness for the world and for everyone. Within days we realised we needed to come up with a way for us to cope and a way to help others cope. We knew this would involve keeping connected with everyone...and so our daily 'live' Facebook show was born!

Every weekday at 11.00am we would go 'live' from our home for approx 1 hour. Everyone was welcome to join us for some light-hearted chat over a cuppa with some fun and banter thrown in for good measure. It started off as a bit of fun, but we had no idea how this show would grow and grow to include some popular daily features, 'live' music, special guests and with a whole community of followers tuning in each day to join the chat. It was pretty special and for 11 weeks it helped us all get through the darkest days of lockdown.

It was during this time we composed 'Crazy Times' and were trying to accept it would not be possible to produce this original piece of music due to our current lack of income.

As the world started to get back to some normality, we made the tough decision to conclude our daily shows to allow more time to concentrate on creating some new musical projects and to plan our future going forward. At this point, we had no idea the incredible impact our shows had on all the people who had tuned in each day.

Then something incredible happened! We picked up our daily post as normal and were baffled by a large envelope addressed to us both. As we opened it and pulled out a large card we were covered in a trail of sparkly gold stars. Inside the envelope was card with a message:

"Your daily shows kept us smiling, and we wanted to send you both a HUGE THANK YOU!! Check your bank account for a little something that we all hope will help you in these difficult times. We can't wait to come and see you play live again and enjoy laughter and fun times!"

WOW - Such incredible kindness from our wonderful community of followers.

We quickly decided we'd like to use this generous gift towards enabling us to professionally record and produce the audio track 'Crazy Times' to mark this wonderful community which had evolved during lockdown. And that's exactly what we did, mixing audio recorded at home (in our kitchen) together with audio recorded professionally to capture the true spirit of keeping the music playing during lockdown.

The track is now available here (ahead of official release on all platforms on 20th November 2020) as a result of that amazing kindness. Our thanks to all those people listed in the track credits below.

However, this is not where the 'Crazy Times' project finishes, oh no!

In true Mike and Kim Cypher style, excitement kicks in and projects just keep growing and growing! 'Crazy Times' is no exception to this...

So, next up was an EPIC video shoot to capture the true community spirit behind the track and to feature some of the amazing people who had enabled the track to be created. This part of the project was solely funded by myself and Mike and so any financial contributions received here to purchase the track will be very gratefully received. You can purchase the track for £1.99 but you can contribute more if you'd like to help fund the project.

The video is due for release on 20th November and is a true example of the power of music to bring people together, raise spirits and create a moment of escapism in these crazy times! We'd love to hear your comments about the video on YouTube when it releases.

Our thanks to videographer Leigh Tarrant of 'Skooch Media' for filming the video and for two fabulous, fun-filled days of video editing (and a lovely curry - thank you Leigh and Jane!)

Special thanks to artist Jussara Nazaré for creating an amazing piece of 'Crazy Times' wall art which features in the video and is also the track cover art.

Continued thanks to our good friend and supporter Ron Milsom of 'Ron Milsom Photography' who photographed the wall art for the track cover and whose 'official' photos from the video shoot will be released soon!

Plus, BIG thanks to Sarah Cross of  'MYVOS' for bringing my crazy outfit idea to life, Barry Benham for wowing us all with his Harley Davidson motorbike, Juanjo Lopez Vidal for his amazing trikke riding skills (as well as his audio recording skills for the track and video soundtrack), Paul Healey and the Cheltenham Salsa Squad for superb dancing, all my helpers and all the incredible people who turned up on the day to feature in the video, Cheltenham Borough Council for all their support, Waitrose Cheltenham for allowing use of their car park and Cheltenham Paint Festival artists for the stunning location backdrop at the tunnels on the Honeybourne line in Cheltenham.

We simply CANNOT wait to share the video with you! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel (it's free) to be sure you don't miss it:

www.youtube.com/user/CyphersFilms

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy listening to the track 'Crazy Times' and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your amazing continued support. It means the absolute world to us.

Together we will get through this.

The music will play on in these crazy times xx