Go back in time with Indoor Pets’ ‘Pathetic Apathetic’
Sit back, relax and enjoy the hyperspace jump.
If the past is so predictable, old and cheesy, why is everyone working on their time machine?
Photo: Jess Greaves
Indoor Pets built one that takes you to the early 2000s; using hard guitars, relentless drums and multiplied voices. It runs on memories, and it’s deadly efficient.
It starts with a vibration of persistent guitars that grows to an explosion, courtesy of James Simpson. The skyline runs blurry out of the windows, and the bursts of power are so unpredictable that every time you feel you got it, they take you by surprise. A final vacuum takes you to a final explosion that shoots you into the air at full speed, with your cheeks flapping about across the London sky.
“Dying by the living wage / Trying to repress my rage / London is the place I love, the place I love / I love to hate.”
— London (Love to Hate)
You land with your eyes closed. Jamie Glass murmurs in the electricity. Open your eyes, and you’re in an MTV music video, surrounded by people jumping around a swimming pool. It is the 2000s! You can’t help but plunge in the water. Dive in a moment of floating, muffled bass line rumbles hit you underwater, and when you re-emerge, everyone is splashing about. Have fun or die.
“Intertwined in a nanny state of mind / I’m losing sight of what is real.”
— Dopamine Girls
Without breaks, you are now on a roller coaster leading through the night. There’s only one way: the highway. The time warp is still a beta version and sounds like it’s dragging for a couple of seconds, but don’t get fooled. It’s only a moment before the machine starts again. There are no breaks. Shout, whether you want it or not.
Finally, a bar. Let’s get some shelter. It seems quiet here. The bass line is soft, and the band on the little stage are singing in delicate whispers. But before you see that coming, sorry: BOOM. Elegant people throw tables and devour you in a bottomless mosh pit. The guitars are as hard as they get, and Oliver Nunn’s delicate bass line was nothing but a lie.
“I’ve got to aim to misplace / The cost of living in my own head.”
— Stink Eye
Here you are, walking by the streets enjoying the full pain of your teenage years, but don’t worry “sadness is just a phase.” This time machine might take you to the past, but the beats of Rob Simpson are present and unavoidable. Pain gets stuck on you till the end, and you will take it back to the future with you. It could be worse; it could be raining.
And the sky opens with all the wrath it’s capable of. Find shelter. That won’t do, not forever. You will have to go back into the rain eventually. This past is not like you remembered it. It’s not easy to take, and you want to go back — or actually forward in time — but the machine doesn’t respond. You’ve been reckless, and now you are clueless and hopeless.
You feel the call of the future, which is your present, a drum machine? There is no time to listen; it’s time for another explosion of sound. The machine is now a car, a roaring, firing rally race car, lifting the dust of time and speeding up out of control. At this point, you have left all your illusions of control over anything and can only scream out of the windows:
You finally got it; Indoor Pets managed to grab your attention. The warp is complete, mashed up, mixed up. There is no machine, and there is no time. You float within particles and learn to finally sing along. One more time, you thought it was over before it actually was. A deep plunge into the past became a realisation of the present. Too deep? Maybe, but still true.
Oh god. Something went wrong here. A robotic voice welcomes you in the future. You went too far beyond the present. The universe opens up before you, and you are less ready than ever, but you have to be because the machine is gone, your present is gone, and the past is so vivid, but the future is here. Robots stare at you in amazement. What are you? Be a machine. Lose your feelings and produce new ones. The sounds are not meant to be controlled, only made, listened to, enjoyed, and suffered. Grab them, travel through them.
You’re back. The credits are scrolling backwards cause you’re behind the screen and watching the end of time while others dream of travelling. Indoor Pets’ time machine is deceptively simple, but it’s solid and knows exactly where it’s going, so you don’t have to.
Pathetic Apathetic is out now via Alcopop! Records.
