Lo-fi Artist Careful Releases EP ‘Promise / Practice’ and Stunning “Promise” Music Video

Careful, the Bay Area’s finest lo-fi-art-pop superstar, releases his new EP Promise / Practice. 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.

Eric Lindley released “Nightcat!” as Nightcat in 2006, then as Careful, the albums Oh, Light in 2010, Because I am always talking in 2012, and The world doesn’t end in 2014. Live shows featured various collaborators over time, including Qasim Naqvi and Aakaash Israni of Dawn of Midi, Stephanie Richards (St. Vincent, David Byrne), and interdisciplinary artist Miwa Matreyek.

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.

The songs were written, recorded, and produced by Eric Lindley, each one more captivating than the last.