Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • The Damned - Evil Spirits 1 day ago
  • Slug - HiggledyPiggledy 1 day ago
  • Christina Vantzou - No. 4 3 days ago
  • The Fangasm: The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit 3 days ago
  • Laura Veirs - The Lookout 4 days ago
  • Eels - The Deconstruction 4 days ago
  • A Place To Bury Strangers - Pinned 4 days ago
  • "I am fascinated by art that asks a lot of questions": DiS Meets Jenny Wilson 4 days ago
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

KC Accidental

Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub/Anthems for the Could've Bin Pills

Label: Arts & Crafts Release Date: 29/11/2010

65628
lukowski by Andrzej Lukowski December 10th, 2010

Broken Social Scene are one of those whose assumed trajectory of musical evolution is such that people who’d happily beat you to death for badmouthing You Forgot it in People will cheerily confess to never having felt the need to listen to debut album Feel Good Lost at any point in their lives. This is fair enough, in a way: BSS is so defined by its comically large numbers of regular members, copious guest stars and – conversely - the central guiding singer/songwriter force of Kevin Drew that you can kind of see why their stripped down, mostly instrumental first record has never really attracted the retrospective attention it probably should have done. Pity, then, KC Accidental, Drew and Charles Spearin’s pre-BSS instrumental project, a band separated from a mass audience by one album, a name change, and the fact that their two EP output - Captured Anthems for an Empty Bathtub and Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills – has been out of print virtually since release.

Basically, I think it’s pretty reasonable to have spent the bulk of your tenure as a BSS fan aware of these records’ existence, but generally totally incurious about hearing them. Well, thank goodness for this Arts+Crafts reissue: those who yearn for the warmer, weirder, more electronic but more human band of You Forgot It In People will find a heckuva lot to love in Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills, a record that’s virtually fully formed BSS.

Recorded way back in 1998’s Captured Anthems... might not be anybody involved's finest hour, but it’s still startlingly strong and fully formed, despite being dominated by the rather, er, unexpected seven moody minutes of Aphex-ish glitchtronica that comprise ‘Anorexic He-Man’. That said, while said track may be a little dated and incongruous, it’s pretty good, frantic drums and squiggly electronics set satisfyingly against a deep, dark, chilly synth line. Elsewhere ‘Kev’s Message To Charlie’ is straight up dicking around, ‘Something for Chicago’ is inconsequential and ‘Nancy and the Girdle Boy’ is some ferocious, jazzy drumming in search of a real point, but the 12 elegiac, organ-driven minutes of ‘Tired Hands’ makes for a ravishing closer. In the greater scheme of the BSS canon, it’s unfocussed and lacking in proper killer songs, but still, it stands up pretty darn well for a record that was, thrillingly, only initially released in a solitary Toronto record shop. (6)

On Anthems for the Could’ve Bin Pills Drew and Spearin have, in essence, arrived. Indeed, for all the merits of this year’s Forgiveness Rock Record, …Could’ve Been Pills is a slightly heartbreaking reminder of what has been jettisoned on the way to jam band Valhalla. It’s a quiet, comforting heartbeat of a record, full of intimate hush and gentle electronics, less slick and less loud than its predecessor, shorn of drum assaults and excess prannying around. ‘Instrumental Died in Bathtub and Took The Daydream With It’ is an elongated cousin to REM’s ‘New Orleans Instrumental No 1’, a sombrely pretty sepia dream that yields to the rich, foamy arpeggios and snug blankets distortion of ‘Residential Love Song’, which find their way like a tributary into ‘Silverfish Eyelashes’ - eight and a half minutes of bashful breaks bedecked with violins that sob like an angel. The penultimate ‘Them (Pop Song #33)’ is essentially a BSS song, being Drew’s first ever vocal and a duet with Emily Haines to boot. It’s five minutes of lowkey, distorted mumblings and barely suppressed euphoria, the type of soul-lightening loveliness that can only be knocked up on the cheap. On You Forgot It In People it’d still be a stand out; on Forgiveness Rock Record it’d seem wildly out of place, like the work of another band. There’s no going back now, for better or for worse, but if you miss the way Broken Social Scene were, these records are a window back to a special time. (8)

Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • The Damned

    Evil Spirits


  • Slug

    HiggledyPiggledy


  • Christina Vantzou

    No. 4


  • The Fangasm: The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit


  • Laura Veirs

    The Lookout


  • Eels

    The Deconstruction



Left-arrow

Wolf People

Steeple

Mobback
65629
65630

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Reissues

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    review


    The Damned - Evil Spirits

  • 105536
  • review


    Slug - HiggledyPiggledy

  • 105535

    review


    Christina Vantzou - No. 4

  • 105534
  • Column


    The Fangasm: The Midnight Organ Fight by Fright...

  • 105533

    review


    Laura Veirs - The Lookout

  • 105532
  • review


    Eels - The Deconstruction

  • 105531

    review


    A Place To Bury Strangers - Pinned

  • 105530
  • Interview


    "I am fascinated by art that asks a lot of ques...

  • 105529
MORE


    feature


    A Month in Records: August 2008

  • 33467
  • review


    Coldplay - Ghost Stories

  • 95631

    review


    Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

  • 7335
  • feature


    Cursive - Six Recorded Highlights

  • 45147

    review


    Sonic Youth - Nurse

  • 6044
  • review


    Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks

  • 26283

    DiScover


    DiScover: Friendly Fires

  • 93726
  • news


    DiS curates the #IndependentMusicMonday Playlist

  • 101788
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2018 DROWNED IN SOUND