INVITATION TO LOVE

By KAT

Something of a Coventry supergroup, Invitation To Love is made up of Jim Bogue writer and vocals, Mike Price on guitar and synth (inlowercase), Mason Le Long on guitar and synth (Batsch) and Alice Weston on vocals (Paradise Of The Titans).

Their new single and video is full of smart beats and smart lyrics. With an opening that is seeped in Kraftwerk tunes, it segues into a pulsing beat. The music underscores the Big Brother style vocals that are both alluring and demanding, building up into the terrifying chant of the work-out guru demanding us to: Fake it, fake it, fake it, you got it, fake it, fake it, fake it, make it work.

The accompanying video, created by band member Jim Bogue, displays office items as fetishism to be stroked, caressed and mixed up with food and drink. Wanna be part of the beautiful go getter people – this could be you if you only smile right (get those teeth cleaned!) and do what you’re told. Become a part of the office furniture. Become fetishised yourself. Run on the treadmill in high heels and dive into a pool of money. Work and play meld into one to create overtime. High five the mirror! Fake it ‘til you make it! . Of the video and single Alice says: ‘It came around from a conversation/fascination with obsolete ’90s office equipment – particularly the ‘Amstrad email phone’ – plus villainous CEOs plus corporate takeovers.’

The band are working on an album which will have its launch at Coventry record shop and live venue Just Dropped In on 4th October 2025. If the rest of the album has the quality of this first single, it will be well worth checking out. Invitation To Love’s aesthetic sits somewhere between satire and sincerity, forcing listeners to question whether they’re being seduced or manipulated by the music itself. The sleek synth layers and tightly wound rhythms evoke a sense of control, while the vocals oscillate between intimacy and command, as if whispering in your ear and shouting through a tannoy at the same time. It’s this ambiguity that makes the track compelling -- you can dance to it, but you’re also made uncomfortably aware of what you’re dancing to.

The Coventry collective clearly revel in playing with nostalgia, especially the kind that feels a little awkward in hindsight. References to outdated tech and forgotten office hardware aren’t simply retro nods -- they’re cultural artefacts, resurrected to expose how quickly society fetishises and discards its tools of productivity. By weaving this imagery into their music and visuals, Invitation To Love remind us that obsolescence is designed, not accidental. In their world, even the fax machine has a ghostly afterlife.

There’s also a theatricality to their performance that hints at wider possibilities. The band’s mixture of spoken word, chant, and soaring harmonies suggests a project as suited to installation art or immersive theatre as it is to a live gig. One can easily imagine an Invitation To Love show staged in a derelict office block, with flickering monitors, ergonomic chairs, and endless reams of paper cascading from the ceiling. It’s a vision of the corporate uncanny, both absurd and unsettling.

With their forthcoming album, Invitation To Love look set to expand these ideas further, deepening their exploration of power, desire, and the machinery of modern work. If the single is any indication, the record will not simply be a collection of songs but a conceptual journey, part critique and part celebration of our entanglement with technology and ambition. Coventry has a long tradition of producing bands who push boundaries, and Invitation To Love seem destined to carry that torch into new, weirdly fluorescent territory