SUMIC – track by track, part 4
4. To Begin Again
On first listen, the final track on the album might sound a little out of place – an instrumental mandolin improvisation with not a written melody in sight. But nothing could be further from the truth. This piece is absolutely integral to the musical sequencing of this album.
This piece was the first to be recorded, and comes from the worst of the times I had experienced over the last few years. As I have previously mentioned, I was creating improvised music because I couldn’t write any. There are actually a couple of pieces of music on my ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ EP that I CANNOT REMEMBER RECORDING! (hence the title…) That’s not quite as strange as it sounds – improvised music by its nature is played once, so you don’t build up any great
memories of recording it (as opposed to ‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’, which I spent an awful lot of time recording, and therefore can remember distinctly).
But it’s true – some memory loss has occurred over the last few years, several things that I just don’t remember, and there’s a couple of pieces of music that fall into that category. Yet, I do have memories of recording this piece, and I remember it because even as I was playing/recording
it, I knew I’d hit on something special – a mood, a musical story that almost played itself. I played the acoustic guitar rhythm first and then improvised the mandolin on top of that. Once those two were recorded, I added three more layers – the hand drum, the shaker and some very discrete piano chords. The whole thing took an hour or two from start to finish.
Even then, with it recorded, I knew this was a piece I’d do something with. It’s quite obviously my finest mandolin improvisation to date, it has a melodic quality that almost sounds like it’s written out, even though it was completely improvised – something to do with the way that I repeated musical phrases, as I liked the sound of them in real time. When the rest of the musical material on this album was taking shape, I remembered this piece, and at that point it acquired the title it now has. Although I was writing again, improvisation is now so key to my music that it had to be represented somewhere on the record, so this became the final musical statement.
5. Coda
At some point early last year, the overall shape of my new album began to become clear. In a similar way to my ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ EP, I started segueing and sequencing this album as one continuous piece, it just felt right to present it as one complete musical vision – four very different pieces of music, but all tied together by the album themes. I was originally going to start the
album with ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’, but once I’d finally finished recording ‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’ it was obvious that was the piece to begin the album with.
If you’ve managed to read this far, I hope that the cover image is now obvious. The Sycamore Gap, now just a gap, on an unrelentingly dark and cold night, the stars the only light in the black gaping maw where the tree used to stand.
This has been an incredible and at times gruelling musical journey and I’m very glad to have reached the end of it. I don’t mind admitting that it feels like this is my ‘magnum opus’ – the best thing I’ve ever done. Is it really? – who knows. Something about the effort taken to reach this point makes it feel like that maybe, but as a sequence of music, will I better it? Will I have the energy to try? We’ll have to see.
Vincent Carr, January 2026
SUMIC – track by track, part 3
In the third of four posts, here are the notes that accompany each of the four tracks on my new album. They are a gathering of my thoughts during the composition and recording of each piece – the ideas behind the pieces and as they developed, and what I was trying to achieve.
3. Fields Of Old
This song came about almost completely by accident. There had been some online chat on a Facebook group about Mike Oldfield, a particular musical hero of mine, and for some reason I was thinking about his surname and splitting it into two words – ‘Old Field’. This then morphed into ‘Fields Of Old’, and before long I had developed it into a sort of musical chant.
The chanting also inspired the ‘yeah oh yeah’ refrain, and a rhythm developed which sounded suitably similar to music that Mike himself might make.
The lyrical theme came about out of a desire to contrast the ‘beginning again’ theme of the rest of the developing album, with a song about something that had existed for a very long time – hence the ploughing of fields of old and the kings and queens of England. I also added the verse at the end to bring in the Sycamore Gap tree, and so that the last words would be ‘to begin again…’ before segueing into the title track of the same name, which, for several reasons, I had planned to be the last track on the album.
The end result is not just a tribute to Mike Oldfield, but is also an integral and important part of the album.
SUMIC – track by track, part 2
In the second of four posts, here are the notes that accompany each of the four tracks on my new album. They are a gathering of my thoughts during the composition and recording of each piece – the ideas behind the pieces and as they developed, and what I was trying to achieve.
2. Goodbye To A Sycamore
The ‘single’ that I released in 2025. This was the second piece of music to be completed for this album, and it came about in such a way that it had a direct bearing on the theme and direction of the album.
On holiday in the North-East of England in the summer of 2023, I was in an art shop and was struck by just how many artists were drawn to the Sycamore Gap tree. I was just beginning to start trying to flex my music writing muscles again, and I thought that it would make a great theme/title for a new piece of music.
So, you can imagine my surprise and sadness when the tree was cut down a few months later. At this point, the big riffs and themes that I was working on were set aside, and this little lament, now re-titled, became the main theme. This, along with ‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’ and the instrumental title track, now became the main theme of the album – both myself and this tree were now beginning again.
As more than a year had now passed at this point (mid 2025) since I had last released some music, the ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ EP, I decided to release this as a single, as I had never actually released a single before, and also to show that I wasn’t musically idle!
Now that the album is finally complete, this little folk tune, which worked so well as a stand-alone release, now takes its rightful place at the heart of the album.
The new SUMIC album – track by track
In the first of four posts, here are the notes that accompany each of the four tracks on my new album. They are a gathering of my thoughts during the composition and recording of each piece – the ideas behind the pieces and as they developed, and what I was trying to achieve.
- I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There
The big opening work of this album was an attempt to encapsulate my Covid experiences into a piece of music. I had become aware that in writing this, it might cover similar territory to ‘Rekindle’, the title track of my 2016 album, as the lyrical theme is quite similar, about someone coming back to life. Obviously, I didn’t want to re-write that song. I also wasn’t quite sure how to tackle the subject of Covid lyrically, and most especially, I also did not want to come over as morose
and self-pitying.
The title and the way forward came about because, in hindsight, I realised I’d been living what I came to call a half-life, in a ‘half world’. My physical and brain functions had shut down quite a bit to cope with Long Covid and just getting through the day. At the time I thought I was coping quite well, it was only later during recovery that I realised just how much I had shut down.
So ‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’ comes from this – at the time I thought I was fully ‘there’, I only realised later that I wasn’t.
In the end, several strands came together in this one piece. The lyrics were boiled down from an awful lot of writing in various verse forms. Once I had them down to what I felt was their essence, I started to write the music around them. I also had another overall theme in mind – the idea of beginning again, and a few other musical ideas for inclusion. There was an idea to try and musically capture the anxiety which inevitably followed me around for a while, caused by not
knowing when I would next be struggling to breathe.
I also had an idea to begin the piece with a ‘voice in the wilderness’, partially inspired by the other main theme for this album, the Sycamore Gap tree. And Finally, the end section, which I titled ‘The Long Road To Recovery’, was a tune that already existed, and I knew it would feature on my next album, so strongly did I feel about it. It was a piece of music that came to me in a dream, and when I realised it was my tune and not someone else’s, I had to get up in the middle of the night to note it down so that I didn’t forget it. It was so perfect as the end section for this piece.
Release date times two!
Friday 27th February wasn’t just the release date for the new SUMIC album, it was also the release date for another MASSIVE (it really is) compilation in the ‘Psych Against Cancer’ series, where various Psychedelic-leaning artists contribute music to the cause, and like a previous edition of this compilation released in December 2020, Vincent Carr’s SUMIC has contributed a piece to this new album.
‘Psych Against cancer, Volume 3, Part 2’ features a piece of improvisation that I’ve called ‘The Divina Commedia Suite’. It is a piece of improvisation in three parts, each titled for the three works, Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, that make up Dante’s piece of timeless literature ‘The Divine Comedy’.
Head over to https://psychlovers.bandcamp.com/album/psych-against-cancer-vol-3-part-2 at Bandcamp now, where you can purchase an awful lot of incredible music for not a lot of money. It really is fantastic value and is, of course, supporting a tremendous cause.
YouTube video for ‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’ now live!
‘I Didn’t Know I Wasn’t There’ is the epic (nearly 17 minutes) opening song to my new album. I have made a lyric video which has just gone live, where you can hear it in advance of the album release this Friday.
Link below –
‘The Psych Ward’ to play the new SUMIC album in its entirety! – Tuesday 24th February 2026
Mark Burnell’s ‘The Psych Ward’ show will be featuring a complete run-through of the new album tomorrow night, Tuesday 24th February 2026, at 9.20pm UK time, 4.20pm New York time, 10.20pm in Europe.
I’ll also be picking some other stuff for Mark to play, music that has influenced the new record both consciously and subconsciously. Please tune in tomorrow night, link above!
SUMIC on Friday Night Progressive catch-up show
A piece from the new ‘To Begin Again’ album was played on last Friday’s ‘Friday Night Progressive’ (details in the previous blog post). There is a catch-up show for anyone who couldn’t tune in live, click on the link below to listen.
SUMIC activity this week
This Friday 20th February, the long-running Friday Night Progressive show will be featuring something from the new ‘To Begin Again’ album.
You can tune in on the links below, 9pm New York time –
FNP #639
February 20th 9:00 PM New York Time
Broadcast Page Links:
NEW 16 bit Broadcast link
http://173.62.192.168:88/broadwave.mp3
‘To Begin Again’ – CDs arrive and release date!
I’m very happy to report that the delivery of CDs has come, and great they look too.
Finally, I can announce a release date, Friday 27th of February, a mere two weeks away.
I hope that you all heard last year’s ‘single’, ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’ – in the next few
days I will be releasing another track from the album so that you can hear it prior to the album release.
New SUMIC album – To Begin Again, further details…
I thought I’d give you all some more information on the new and upcoming SUMIC album, ‘To Begin Again’.
As I mentioned in my previous post, and as I have also been detailing in previous blog posts below, this record has taken about three years to create. This has been off and on, with the off being quite as often as the on, on several occasions.
Nevertheless, it is now complete and I can give you some further insights into the album.
The album is four tracks, two songs and two instrumental pieces, three composed and one completely improvised. The album is sequenced and segued (with the tracks all running together) to form one continuous 37 minute musical sequence.
The reason for this is that even though they are four distinct pieces in their own right, all of the tracks are related to each other thematically.
This is not something that I particularly set out to do, but as ideas developed and it became clear that the whole album would be thematically linked, it made sense to do this.
This continuous sequencing was also something I’d done on my 2024 EP release ‘Yesterday Is Gone’. The tracks all worked so well when sequenced together that I ended up releasing the completed EP as both separate tracks and as one segued whole. It is my intention to do the same with the download for this new album.
The CDs are being produced as I write this. Hopefully in a week or so I will have a better picture of where we’re at, and then I can move on to that most exciting of news, a release date!
Stay tuned!
New year, new album: Vincent Carr’s SUMIC – To Begin Again
It is with absolute pleasure that I can finally announce the release of my new SUMIC album, ‘To Begin Again’, coming very soon.
To say that I’m just pleased to finally get to this point is an understatement. Over three years in the making from inception to completion, it has been a real labour of love.
As previously mentioned, the album will be available on CD and download. There will be more details about the availability of the CD and the release date over the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
A SUMIC update for December / Year In Review
I’m pleased to report an uptick in SUMIC activity over the last month or so. It’s so positive in fact, that I do believe we’re getting close to the point where the latest SUMIC album is complete. Things will naturally slow down over the end of year period, so I’m guessing that I’ll get things finalised early next year.
I can confirm that there WILL be a CD edition of this album, as well as a download. Without going into too much detail yet, this album feels really important to me. There are reasons for this that I’ll get into later, suffice to say that I feel I need to mark this particular milestone with a physical release.
So much for the plans for next year, but what about this year? – well, to say that it’s not quite gone to plan would be an understatement. I did put out the first SUMIC ‘Single’ in the summer, a beautiful little folk piece called ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’, after the felling of the tree at Sycamore Gap in Northumberland in North East England. But apart from that, there’s been no new music from SUMIC at all.
Hopefully that will all change next year!
Best wishes to you all for the end of this year and next year.
A SUMIC update for September
I’m just reading my last entry for July below, and what I could see coming down the tracks has turned out to be true. The recording progress has got slower and slower over the last two months.
There are multiple reasons for this, but I have to say I’m not too disheartened. That’s mostly because what I am recording (however slowly) sounds great.
I find myself saying this to myself, so I’ll say it to all of you good folks out there too – the wait will be worth it!
A SUMIC update for July
Not sure what happened to June… oh no, sorry, I remember – it was really busy!
Although it pains me to say it, I don’t think the release of the new SUMIC album is staying on track. It’s still progressing, but it feels like time is moving faster in relation to the musical work I’m doing. I was originally talking about an autumn release – I’d like to think I can still make that, but I’m starting to have my doubts.
In the end, it’s the music that counts, and it’ll be finished when it’s finished, so if it’s later, so be it.
‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’ reviewed by The Singles Bar at http://www.realgonerocks.com
I’m being brutally honest when I say that I’ve almost given up on getting SUMIC promoted beyond what I’m prepared to do these days. The couple of avenues that do promote it (and to whom I am eternally grateful that they exist!) are that rare species – people who listen.
One such wonder is http://www.realgonerocks.com – a site so chock-full of good reading that you can get lost in it. They review single releases in the appropriately-named ‘The Real Gone Singles Bar’ which comes out on Thursdays, and this is the first time that SUMIC have appeared here, as, obviously, this is the first time SUMIC has released a single!
I’m always intrigued to hear what these guys are going to think because not only do they review music of all different genres, but they also know a thing or two, so you know that they are always going way beyond a cursory listen. This latest review is no exception, and you can read the review of ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’ and several other releases here –
‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’ release day!
It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of this tune – a piece that (hopefully) both laments and celebrates a loss and a rebirth. Please do come and have a listen, it’s a piece of music that I’m very pleased with and I’m very happy to let it out into the wider world.
Head over to https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com/ and grab a copy!
First play of ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’ this Tuesday on The Psych Ward, from 9.20pm, UK time
Tune into to The Psych Ward tomorrow night, Tuesday 27th May, at 9.20pm UK time, when you will be able to hear a worldwide first play of ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’, the new SUMIC ‘single’, released this coming Friday, 30th May.
Tune in here using the following link – https://progrock.com/
New release – A SUMIC Single and Video ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’
I am very proud to announce a first for SUMIC – a single release!
This is a first for me, for a few reasons, but mainly because when I started SUMIC, I was focused on albums. A bit later I started releasing improvisations, mostly as E.P.s, although there have been a couple of album releases now that have had their basis in improvisation, not composition.
This is different though. For the last 18 months or so I’ve been back composing in a big way. I’m still planning on releasing a new SUMIC album later this year, but my mind has wandered a little with a recent event that has been in the news again (in the U.K. at least).
In early 2023 we were in a gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, and the number of artworks featuring Sycamore Gap really struck me. I knew it as a fairly local landmark obviously, but its stock seemed to have increased over time. I thought it would be a good theme to write a piece of music about – wild beautiful country, open vistas etc. Fast forward six months though, and the tree was felled.
In the interim I’d been writing about other things, and I had this very sad ‘lament’ piece which I was wondering what to do with. When the tree was cut down, it resonated with me a lot. So, the lament was titled ‘Goodbye To A Sycamore’, and is now the opening piece on the forthcoming album.
I also made a short promotional video for the tune, and with the felling of the tree being in the news again (plus the finished album still being some way off) I thought – ‘why not put it out as a stand-alone release’?
So look out for it over the next couple of weeks. I don’t mind admitting myself it’s a beautiful tune. I have written several ‘laments’ over the years (I seem to have a tendency towards sad themes!) but I think this is one of my best.
The single will be released and available to buy at https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com/ and the video will be available to watch at https://www.youtube.com/@vincentcarrssumic326
I’ll post again soon with a release date and further details as they happen!
SUMIC update for May 2025 – RELEASE ALERT!
So I missed updating everyone in April, it was so busy that time was in short supply to keep up with the social side of things.
But I’m very pleased to say that a SUMIC something is in the pipeline for imminent release!
I’ll keep you all posted as things progress, hopefully over the next week or two. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this…
SUMIC update for March 2025
Is it March already?
It’s fair to say that this year has been a bit of a blur so far. I’ve been so busy that I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked on the musical front, but what progress I have made is very good indeed and I’m over the moon with how things are sounding as I move towards the endgame of a new SUMIC album.
There’s still quite a bit of recording to do. As things currently stand I think it will take me until mid-summer to wrap that up, and then every else that goes into making an album needs to happen as well, so I think we’ll be looking at an autumn release.
That I’m confident enough to make that statement just shows how well it’s going. I’ll hopefully update a bit sooner as I progress!
SUMIC December 2024 – end of year in review
I’m delighted to be able to sit down and gather my thoughts together after a mad busy December.
It’s been a pretty good year musically. I started the year looking back, after realising that it has been 10 years since my first SUMIC release. Then in the summer I put an E.P. out, ‘Yesterday Is Gone’, which was a great release. I’ve really started writing and recording again in earnest, and I even managed to pick up an instrument and play it in front of a few folks. Given where I was in the previous two years I’m calling that a success!
Looking ahead to next year, I’m reasonably confident that there will be a new SUMIC album release. I’m really enjoying the process of recording / mixing / editing again. It’s a lot of work but the results so far make it all worth it, and I can’t wait to share the results with everyone!
I hope everyone has had a good year in 2024 and I look forward to being able to bring some more music to you in 2025!
SUMIC update for November 2024
Greetings all! – another update? so soon?
Another sign of my increased energy, both physical and mental, is that I can now write updates in consecutive months! Go me!
And there has been progress in the last month, as recording goes on. This album is starting to feel very ‘personal’ indeed, which might seem a weird thing to say – by their very nature all of my works, which is solo work, should be personal, no?
The answer of course, is ‘yes’. All of my work, whether written or improvised, has part of myself in it, in terms of my own approaches to playing and writing. But this one feels slightly different. This is probably because of the tribulations that have led up to this point, but there is another reason too, which you’ll all have to wait quite a while to hear and realise, and that is that so far, all of the music feels of the same ‘relevance’ to me, the individual tracks feel all of a piece, like they’re a continuous suite telling the same story.
Exciting times for sure! Next month I’ll have an end of year round-up, and that will be that for 2024!
SUMIC update for October 2024
I thought I’d update everyone on the progress working towards a new SUMIC album, to be tentatively released sometime next year.
It’s taken about a year, off and on, but I’m happy to say that the writing for this is mostly done and I’m pretty much in recording mode now. It’s going to take a long time yet, but I’m back into the swing of it.
Now that I can reflect over the last 2-3 years, I realise that writing was just too much for me, too much thought and mental effort required. Now that I’ve recovered from Long Covid a lot more, I finally have the energy to do this and it feels good to be back doing this again.
I’ll update more as I progress, but it’s looking good so far!
SUMIC on this month’s ‘Nickie’s Niches’ at progrock.com
The new SUMIC E.P. is featured on Nickie Harte Kelly’s ‘Nickie’s Niches’ on progrock.com. Nickie picks her favourite Bandcamp releases of the month and rolls then into a fantastic review show. You can check it out here –
New ‘full digital discography’ now available at Bandcamp
After a request from a new SUMIC fan I have created a ‘full digital discography’ download option over at https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com
Just click on any release, and you will get the option to buy everything all at once!
Greetings SUMIC fans!
I’d like to thank everyone who’s picked up a copy of the new ‘Yesterday Is Gone’ E.P. so far, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you can listen here –
https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com/album/yesterday-is-gone-e-p
It’s a release that I’m very pleased with. It strikes the sweet spot that I’m aiming for between a pure improvisation, and working quickly to compose something ‘on the spot’ that isn’t quite improv, but isn’t a fully-fledged composition either, more of a ‘quick sketch’.
As always, thanks for listening!
‘Yesterday Is Gone’ – release day!
It’s always a bit exciting to put some new music out into the world, and today is no different.
The new E.P. is available from today at https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com/album/yesterday-is-gone-e-p
Please do have a listen and purchase a download if you like what you hear!
‘Yesterday Is Gone – Improvisations No. 5’
to be released next Friday
Friday 16th August sees the release of my fifth set of improvisations, ‘Yesterday Is Gone’. Like the previous releases in the series, it consists of pieces that were either completely improvised on the spot as they were played, or they were ‘spontaneously composed’, whereby ideas that were developed there and then were developed in the moment.
This particular release is a suite of five pieces, segued together to form one continuous sequence of music. It alternates between piano and mandolin folk and heavier electric / ambient improvisation, and it’s a suite that has a lovely flow and balance to it. It’s a work I’m very happy with, and I hope you’ll enjoy it!
https://vincentcarrssumic.bandcamp.com
A new SUMIC release – Friday 16th August…
Something new is coming from SUMIC…
SUMIC news for July 2024 – skin in the game!
The long running US radio show Friday Night Progressive – https://fridaynightprogressive.com/ – has long been a supporter of my music. That’s the great thing about the ‘progressive’ tag – it’s a VERY broad church, and the FNP host, Ronald Marquiss, has long included me in it.
They run an annual ‘Indeprog’ awards, where the best independent progressive releases are voted on (my 2017 album ‘New Paeans’ actually won a best album award) and this year, my 2023 album ‘Jupiter Wrens: Fantasias’ is in the running, along with nearly 100 other artists.
The first breakout show happened this Friday just gone, as it does every Friday at 9pm New York time (if you’re UK based it’s between 1-2am in the morning), but there’s also a Mixcloud archive for replays. The link is below –
My music will feature at some point in the next few weeks, but if new and adventurous, progressive music is your thing, then tune in if you can!
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