This is the first album that drummer John Colpitts has released under his own name, but he has been a familiar and almost ubiquitous figure in underground music for years through Oneida, his various collaborations, and his solo work as Kid Millions and Man Forever. Unsurprisingly, the new name signals a new direction for Colpitts, though the circumstances that inspired his stylistic shift were not exactly pleasant ones, as the album title is a literal one: this is music Colpitts composed in the aftermath of a car accident that "severely injured his back and left him unable to work or perform for months." Necessity being the mother of invention, Colpitts enlisted Greg Fox to assist him in "transposing his rhythmic ingenuity to other instruments." In more concrete terms, that means that Music from the Accident is primarily a (modular) synth album, but Colpitts' imperiled ingenuity comes through admirably well, as this is a synth album like no other and it is a good one too. Moreover, the three compositions mirror the stages of Colpitt's recovery, "shifting from stasis to toddling and finally transcendence." My favorite stage is apparently "toddling," as the stumbling, off-kilter return of Colpitts' drumming on "Up and Down" is the highlight of the album for me.
The opening "Bread" is the most synth-centric of the album's three pieces, as Colpitts weaves a meditative state of suspended animation from organ-like drones and stammering, oddly timed chords. Initially, it feels like a jazzier, organ-driven homage to classic glitch-inspired laptop music à la Oval and Fennesz, but it soon becomes fleshed out by other elements (panning drones, intensifying low-end heft, additional layers of slippery, elusive synth melody) en route to a blooping kosmische soundbath of stuttering, interwoven synth fragments. The following "Up and Down" began life as "series of complex interlocking rhythms" that Colpitts tried to drum along with, but he ultimately removed the "labyrinth of overlapping meters" to leave only his wonderfully bizarre live drumming. There is also some spacey and minimal synth accompaniment, which makes the whole thing feel like a willfully naive, outsider art deconstruction of Bitches Brew-style fusion. I wish it were a bit longer (its the shortest piece on the album), but "leave 'em wanting more" is always a better approach than "flog a good idea to death" or "overstay your welcome," so I cannot complain. Colpitts does, however, allow the closing "Recovery" to deservedly stretch out for an epic sixteen-minute run. It is yet another surprising piece on an album full of surprises, as guest Jessica Pavone unleashes a feral-sounding squall of "microtonal viola runs" to steer the album into territory akin to Spires That in the Sunset Rise teaming up with a killer drummer like Chris Corsano (or John Colpitts) for a volcanic set of drone-heavy free folk. Of the three pieces, "Recovery" is the most substantial and cathartic, but the entire album is packed wall-to-wall with enough interesting ideas and virtuosic execution to feel like a revelation and a significant creative breakthrough (quite a rare feat for any artist already a decade deep into a solo career).
Samples can be found here.
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