‘Be Careful’: When Bdrmm captured the sound of the pandemic

Posted On February 9, 2025February 9, 2025

The Covid-19 era’s seismic impact on society, let alone the arts, was so fundamentally upending it became difficult to report or discuss the tumultuous period without lapsing into clichés or reeling off words that suddenly ‘trended’ amid the pandemic’s lexicon.

How many times did we all say ‘unprecedented’ when chatting to fellow shoppers in orderly, single-file queues outside Tesco, or the oft-quipped ‘new normal’ when resigning ourselves to the strange sudden world of social distancing and public masking? The music world, too, was affected, with all scheduled gigs vanishing, artists facing serious financial ‘uncertainty’ (there’s another one), and a backlog of recording projects still overseeing ‘post-pandemic’ albums released in 2025.

The ruminative lessons learnt by capitalism’s whirring hamster wheel grinding to a halt and the basking in newfound time to spend with loved ones, realise passion projects, or simply reconnect with nature, seem to have now been ruthlessly quashed by the corporate-political class, but sincere bolts of perspective struck many during those lockdown bouts of ’20.

Ryan Smith was no exception. Fronting the Yorkshire shoegaze group Bdrmm, Smith wrote I Don’t Know‘s lead single ‘Be Careful’ during the visceral introspective aura that hung in the collective air during that weird time.

“I had set up a little studio in the back of my garden and would often take myself there on evenings with numerous bottles of wine,” Smith told Brooklyn Vegan in ’23. “Inspired by Portishead, and the bassline owes itself to Radiohead’s ‘Nude’, this track just came so naturally. It’s about taking care of yourself and realising when you need to change. I’ve been guilty of indulging too much, and I definitely noticed myself becoming somebody I don’t like. When realising that, it felt important. Trying to be a better person is hard when you don’t know you’re doing something wrong.”

Isolation amid national unease wrought by an invisible threat is certainly as good a place as any for some soul-searching. It also evidently can inspire furtive creativity. A standout cut from Bbdrmm’s sophomore LP and first with Mogwai‘s Rock Action Records, ‘Be Careful’ soaks in a hazy pool of percolating percussion and chiming guitar that sonically illustrates the song’s pensive wander with masterful understatement. Colin Greenwood’s distinctive bass can be detected, and the piece’s aural vapour is less Portishead’s Dummy and more the psychedelic washes captured on their final and greatest album Third.

Smith’s bold affirmation for discarding our toxic shades and pursuing our better selves is potently expressed in ‘Be Careful’s lyrical mantra: “Be careful of yourself/ Prepare for something else”. No one muddled through the pandemic’s topsy-turvy episode without at least one hard slap of grim reality, be it the painful loss of a family member, the abrupt vanishing of livelihoods, or the damaging behaviours exacerbated by lockdown’s interpersonal detachment, personal reckoning was a universal takeaway from Covid-19’s capsizing blight.

A long time ago yet leaving an aftermath still being processed and analysed, meditative gems such as Bdrmm’s ‘Be Careful’ encapsulate the era’s precipice of universal reflection all had to navigate.

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