Careful Shares Third Single “I don’t mind” Off Upcoming EP ‘Promise and Practice’

Art-pop project Careful releases the third single, “I don’t mind,” off their upcoming EP Promise / Practice – due out on September 22. All songs were written, recorded, and produced by Eric Lindley. “I don’t mind” is a breakup anthem, kind of. The singer alternates between, on one hand, privately moping and on the other, lashing out at their former partner to cover up how sad they really are. Something along the lines of “I was the best you were ever going to get, and you left me anyway.”

Eric Lindley elaborates on his latest single:

“For the sound of the song, I tried to keep a wide distance between the two moods: a very private, dry sound that really felt bare and alone for the ‘sad’ parts, and a more soaring feel for the others.”

Careful’s first EP after almost a decade without releasing any new music, Promise / Practice is a meditation on loss. A parent loses a child to gun violence; an abuser loses their partner to their own cruelty and ignorance, people young and old face their sudden or eventual deaths. The songs are sometimes disarmingly bare, honest, and personal, sometimes playful, indirect or abstract, but always rooted in the fragility of our bodies and our relationships.

Sonically, the release, on the whole, aspires to the kind of emotional art-pop played by acts like Mitski, Perfume Genius, Sufjan Stevens, and Holly Herndon, while each track has its own unique inflection, drawing inspiration at times from the colourful harmonies and textures of Maurice Ravel, the degraded electronic noise of Crystal Castles, and intimacy of Elliot Smith.