Future Sound Of London, The - Accelerator

To me, this CD really reverberates the soul, genius and excitement of the era it was released. I can't help but imagine those days long gone, of "cyber-punk", hackers, floppy-disc drives, the bare-bones potential of the world-wide web, the proto Matrix neo-psychedelia of ecstacy and rave culture, virtual reality as "wave of the future"... the list could go on!

I don't think the tracks here sound dated at all either, which is most surprising. The slightly-compressed 808 is still packing a punch even after all these years, and the U. K. acieed-kitsch is toned down several notches, making the music sound a lot less cheeky than many of their contemporaries, at least in Europe.

My opinion is that this album is their best work, and although it has been said time & time again, both on this site and on many others, "Papua New Guinea" is just an excellent, excellent track.

I, personally, wasn't very impressed by the second disc on this re-release though. I couldn't say I expected any of the remixed versions of the song to come close to even touching the original (and as such lowered my expectations considerably)... but even so, many of the mixes seemed to lack creativity. Nary a style-crossover to be found, which would have been interesting, and most remixes tend to just loop selected cuts from the track constantly, never really showing off enough in the way of its depth to make it interesting. Some of the mixes added little bits, but bored me still.

No matter, as I'd highly recommend this CD to anyone, just that perhaps its a better idea to look for the first edition than to waste too much money for the additional "Papua New Guinea" remixes.

Worth adding, in my opinion, that I hope we can eventually get past this "electro-clash" '80s zeit-geist and move towards a consensual nostalgia for early experimental '90s chill-out / bleep stuff - if ever there was a movement worth slipping back into, this is one of the releases that show-cases it.

FSOL's debut album, Accelerator, opened a lot of windows for electronic music in 1991 when it was first released. Never before had an artist came along and fused electronica, trance and house in such a successful way. Accelerator was not my introduction to FSOL.. infact it was the very last album I bought of their's. This didn't take away from my listening experience though because each album they release is quite a bit different then the next and there isn't logical progression (usually) so there was nothing to be desired in the sound. This album contains their monster hit "Papua New Guinea" which even to this day still gets occasionally club play. The 2nd disc is actually the remix single for Papua New Guinea that was orginally released separate. A nice bonus but begins to sound a bit repitetive.

An absolutely historical album Originally released in 1991 this album is essential for understand the development of the electronic music during the nineties.

From all the aliases that Brian Dougans & Garry Cobain could have selected for this publishing, they creted this name that actually is the most wellknown: The Future Sound Of London.

That was exactly what "Accelerator" supposed on 1991, nothing else and nothing less that the sound that will dominate on the next ten years at London City.

For two persons that come from the Acid scene (Humanoid), published an album with breakbeats, trip hop, downtempo, ambient, house, techno and some drum & bass rythm structures was really absolutely visionary. Those were the cardinal points of the map in which London music (and electronic music in general) will be moving during the next years.

Today maybe could sound not as visionary, but it have passed practly fifteen years. And it stills sounds actually!

Absolutely great, and absolutely essential. And in this ten anyversary edition with a free bonus cd with "Papua New Guinea Mix Anthology". What else do you want?

Accelerator. If you don’t have this album, you don’t know anything about electronic music. It’s a classic through-and-through. Although it may sound slightly dated, it still stands head-and-shoulders above most techno albums today. With impressive range, from the moody “While Others Cry” and the trance-forerunner “Calcium” to the nu-industrial of “Central Industrial” and the storming “Moscow,” Accelerator still is a great listen. This re-release also includes 10 mixes of “Papua New Guinea,” a title that should inspire devotion among all fans of electronic music. Blue States does its usual downtempo magic on the track, while Simian makes it sound like the carnival from hell. Hybrid (of course) adds some hard breaks, while Satoshi Tomiie makes some dark house. Some good mixes, but do they hold up to the original? What do you think the answer is?