First Single from 'Fire in My Head' Released + East Bay Times Review

Hi folks, the first single from the new album Fire in My Head: The Anxiety Suite is officially out! It’s the second movement, titled “This Is Fine.” Enjoy the video below, featuring solos by Adam Shulman, Fred Randolph, and me, with Kasey Knudsen, Sheldon Brown and Jon Arkin.

The album got a really nice (p)review in the East Bay Times/Mercury News from Andrew Gilbert:

Cooped up in our abodes, strategizing about how to acquire food and other necessities and uncertain about the pandemic’s course, we’re all experts in anxiety these days. El Cerrito trumpeter Ian Carey feels our pain, and he’s created an ideal soundtrack for these disquieting times. His new album, “Fire in My Head: The Anxiety Suite” (Slow & Steady), was composed and recorded long before COVID-19 became a household name, but it’s about as tuned into the zeitgeist as an N95 face mask. Evoking anxiety itself isn’t hard. But Carey does something far more interesting: The five-movement suite unfolds like a stream-of-consciousness interior conversation, with recurring themes, counter themes, digressions and roiling rhythms that mimic a pulse driven by encroaching dread. But his extended forms and through-composed passages leave plenty of space for deep breathing.