The Future Sound Of London, Accelerator
Tomorrow's music, yesterday.
Before they were FSOL, Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans traded as Stakker Humanoid, whose fast-cut, skullcrushing cyberbeats don't show a spot of rust almost 20 years on. After FSOL, they went largely under the moniker of Amorphous Androgynous, purveying gaseous, colourised ambient. Accelerator (released in 1992) catches them at a fascinating, schizoid pivotal point.
On the opener “Expander,” the rapid-fire attack of a body-popping acid riff is juxtaposed with celestial vocals and morphing effects which realise in sound some of the ideas the duo also explored as graphic designers. At times on Accelerator, it's as if a giant retractable roof is slowly opening on an indoor rave to reveal a vivid, explorable night sky. “Papua New Guinea” is probably the standout track, its majestic piano motif flanked by screeching, jungle, avian noise, its “Funky Drummer” backbeat kicking in beneath the vast, ethereal awning of a Lisa Gerrard sample. The album affords gentler, jazzier climes — on “Pulse State” for example — but generally, as on “It's Not My Problem,” bolt upright rhythms are coupled with a spatial and tonal awareness lacking in their contemporaries. On the mock-Utopian “Central Industrial,” there's even a nod back to the pre-future sounds of Throbbing Gristle and Kraftwerk. This was, indeed, tomorrow's music yesterday.
