Tagged as “the most exciting thing happening in UK metal right now” by the NME, Invasion define themselves as two tough girls and one geeky dude having fun sharing the love for heavy metal.

INVASION – Moongazer (EP version) from Marek Steven on Vimeo.

They’re obsessed with fire, wizards and fantasy. Expect savage short tracks, huge riffs, empowering vocals and high energy live shows. On stage, they leave their souls. They’re intense. Their heavy is retro, raw and real. “It’s basically a bit like early Metallica mixed with early Sabbath but rough around the edges”, in their own words. The best: their frontwoman, a bouncy afro-asian diva dressed in robes –and with not really the kind of voice you’re normally used to in heavy metal bands. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

They’ll lighting our stage up the 2nd of October in Last.fm first night of residency at Cargo’s FREE Fridays.

LIVE: INVASION + BOY OF GIRL + LOVELIKEFIRE

DJS: SKULL JUICE + LAST.FM TEAM

7-3

Free entry all night

Mpho took ten minutes out to have two glasses of apple juice and a chat with us about her new album, her patience being rewarded, various producers and breaking out of the neo-soul box.

 

 Cargo Podcast - Ten Minutes with Mpho: Play Now | Download (43483)

She’s a go getter; a naughty 18 year old MC from Harlem with a big dirty mouth. Although she doesn’t consider herself a diva, she boasts about doing exactly what she wants to do –and she really knows where she’s going. This cute girl writes all her own music, except for “Supplier” (diplo made that beat) and “Barbie Shit” (produced by Feel-X) –and just for the record, in “Seventeen” she raps over Laditron. If we made a word cloud with her whole discography probably two words would stand out from the rest: “tits” and “dicks” – and maybe “ass” or “bitch”. She raps mostly about sex, about her boyfriend’s package… pretty redundant teen topics –but her music is fresh, fierce and brighter than any other female rapper’s we’ve heard in ages –and there have been lots. If you bump into her on the night of her show at Cargo, think before you speak – with just two rhymes she could wreck you. And don’t challenge her to a Scrabble afterparty – you’ll lose. You’ve been warned!

FRI. 25th SEPT.

LIVE: AZEALIA BANKS + QUAD THROW SALCHOW + PINEY GIR + COLOURING IN + GOLD PANDA + THE RAYOGRAPHS

DJS: TIM LOVE LEE + CRISPIN DIOR

7-3

Free entry

Ramona Gonzalez is a composer, songwriter, Philosophy student from Los Angeles and the sweet voice of Nite Jewel. She’ll be playing in our Kaleidoscope Caravan Club on the 3rd of October, and Mila Doré had a sit down with her before their European tour.

Hi Ramona, please define yourself in 3 adjectives.
Pizza, pizza, pizza.

Our Philosophy studies were a haze of confusion and weed. How was yours? Do you find yourself influenced by the musings of say, Rousseau or Nietzsche in your lyrics, or do you steer clear of all that?
My philosophy studies were fragmented as I went from university to university for a bit.  All in all, I found Heidegger a huge source of comfort (as well as Nietzsche).  The references you are looking for are embedded within the song titles.  See if you can guess which one.

Do you think your music is meant to be danced to or to be listened with headphones?
My music is meant for deep meditation.

Why did you decide to record your album in an 8-track cassette and with, mostly, live takes?
The 8-track was the only device I had for recording at the time and the remote control to punch-in was broken so I had to record everything mostly in one take.  It makes you accept certain eccentricities instead of splicing out your mistakes.

You’ve said your electronica has more of the past than the present. What old bands have influenced you the most?
We are playing right before Liquid Liquid and Faust at Numusic festival tomorrow.  I am super excited because both bands have been influential in some ways.

For what already-made film (or tv series or videogame) would you like to make the soundtrack?
Super Mario Bros.

What do you listen to when you’re sad?
I listen to New Age in order to overcome my sadness (i.e. Constance Demby or Iasos).

What do you think is the most important problem of humankind?
Wow, I have never been asked the most important problem of humankind. I think humankind has many problems worth addressing including: racism, poverty, desertification, obesity, stupidity, chaos, randomness, STDs, incompleteness, insignificance, ineptitude, and lack of appreciation for the arts.

SAT. 3rd OCT.

LIVE: NITE JEWEL + THE GOLDEN FILTER + GOLD PANDA

DJS: MIKIX THE CAT + JOY ORBISON + COUNT CHOCULA + NOPAININPOP DJS

8-1

Pay what you want*

*50% of proceedings will go to Amnesty International

When they were no more than two snotty teens, on telly they were showing series like The Goonies or Transformers and films like Karate Kid, The Neverending Story or Teen Wolf. And there they were, sat right in front of the screen –who knows for how long! No surprise then that now they love the 80s: the fluorescent colours, the backcombed hairstyle… and, thanks to the music, they’ve managed to never stop being the kids they use to be.

Futurecop – Karate Kids (video by TNUC) from TNUC on Vimeo.

Check out Futurecop!’s answers to our Love & Hate quiz:

♥ When you first wake up in the morning, what’s the first song or sound you most like to hear?

M people – Move it! I automatically sing this song when I wake – this is actually true and I don’t even have the song. It’s all in memory!

 Tell us one song you hate but can’t get out of your head because the lyrics keep on coming back to you.

Black Eyed Peas – Boom

♥ Which are your top 5 bands at the moment?

New Moscow

Trackademics

New Boyz

Keith Masters

Taylor Swift

 What concert would you like to forget the most and why?

Yo Yo in London. It was one of our first ever gigs, and we had an idea to buy a massive light which we would shine through our futurecop! poster so it light it up. Seemed like a good idea at the time however it went horribly wrong because it was too bright and we couldn’t turn it off. It looked like someone was filming an asian wedding! –we couldn’t stop laughing on stage about it – it was hilarious. Our manager wasn’t too impressed lol

♥ What do you enjoy the most about playing in a band?

Quite a few reasons actually. Firstly its kind of a break from the real world.  Also it feels really good when your sharing ideas and emotions from your head, then sharing it with the world and people actually loving it. But mainly because it allows you to act and dress up like a kid again lol

 Can you think of any reason that would make you quit music?

If it was not fun anymore, we’ve come across a lot of people who try to change our ideas (and the music) to make it ‘commercial’ but I hate that I just run away from it, we make music to make us happy first, whether its commercial or not. Plus its hard work being someone else anyway.

Futurecop! will be playing in our 18^th’s FREE FRIDAYS, together with Ocelot, Milke, Newislands, Tom Neville DJ, Rene DJ and the infernal beats of Designer Drugs DJs.

LIVE: FUTURECOP! + OCELOT + MILKE + NEWISLANDS

DJS: DESIGNERS DRUGS + TOM NEVILLE + RENE (WONKY POP)

6-3

FREE ENTRY

Our friends who make music and run Victoria Park festivals and the like, you know, Groove Armada, yeah, them, well they have just finished their amazing new album, Black Light. The record isn’t due for release until February 2010, but to celebrate its completion, Tom and Andy have decided to give away a killer track, Warsaw, the album opener which features Nick Littlemore from PNAU/Empire of the Sun on vocals.

To download Warsaw for free, simply head to groovearmada.com. The download will be available until the 19th of September.

Exciting times…

STOP PRESS: We are very pleased to announce that 50% of all door proceedings collected at the door will go to the charity Amnesty International. Founded in 1961, Amnesty has been mobilising public opinion to put pressure on individuals and governments who perpetrate human rights abuses. For us it will be an immense honour to hand over our modest contribution weekly to such a worthy cause. You can find out more about Amnesty International and learn how to get involved on their website.

—

The Cargo music team have decided to take the plunge and find out just how much people are prepared to pay for good entertainment when given complete freedom to choose.

Starting on the 26th of September, Cargo will introduce a novel approach to Saturday admission charges: the “Honesty Box Payscheme”. Under this scheme, there will be no fixed cover charge on the door. Rather, Cargo will let the punters decide how much the night’s entertainment is worth to them.

So who wins with the scheme? The short answer is: everyone. The punters will get to pay a fair price on the door, the bands will reap the rewards of their hard work directly from the fans, and Cargo gets to donate 50% of the total takings to a named charity of its choice (plus have a packed club every Saturday night, of course).

Clearly such a scheme will rely heavily on having entertainment worth paying for. And that’s where the Kaleidoscope Caravan Club comes in: a brand new Saturday night promotion brought to you by the team that have established Free Fridays as a London clubbing institution. The first line up consists of live acts including Magistrates, Neon Indian and The Chap along with Alexander Robotnick and John Morales DJing. Now surely that’s worth a few pretty pounds?

Did you know that every time you perform a good deed your brain secretes a substance connected with pleasure? Helping others and sharing make us happier. So with that in mind we’d love to share with you one of our last and favourite musical discoveries:  Felix’s Machines.

The mad inventor of this contraption is Felix Thorn, British sound artist, and the machines are a collection of objects and musical components pieced together to create a multi-sensory music show worthy of a Tim Burton soundtrack.

Felix’s Machines from Felix Thorn on Vimeo.

The man has been heavily into electronic music for years, and one day he started to imagine how all those blips and bleeps would look like, with the final aim of making some sort of acoustic synthesizer. Unlike most of us, who would just smile at the thought then look for the remote control to see what’s on the silly box, he sprung into action.  And the result is just mind-blowing: autonomous machine parts and sparkling lights conspiring to create the most mesmerising music-box melodies.

Felix, we salute you.

Crystal Fighters mix electronica, nu-rave and folk music. They use Basque traditional instruments with synths, loops and voices moisturized by a thousand filters. They’re energy in the purest form and they’re revolutionising the local party scene with their “I love London” tune.

If they don’t make you sweat through your t-shirt and laugh like a child, maybe you should consider applying for a living statue down on the South Bank.

Folk music is a remote, partially undiscovered island. Spain is a deep dark cave within said remote, partially undiscovered island .. Catalan Guillamino has already tried it by mixing sardana (traditional catalan dance in which people hold their hands together and turn around in circles) with electronica, jazz and rock; but the experiment didn’t hit the dancefloors, maybe because sardana itself is anything but exciting.

Anyways, who would have said that a txalaparta could make us move like it does? Before this five piece band came along I thought playing the txalaparta was just the worst possible revenge to inflict on your biggest enemy’s hangover. But now I believe that it will replace the ukelele as the must-have instrument for every Shoreditch haircut band. Let’s see how long it takes for bands to bust out the castanets on stage.

We have two exclusive remixes for you to download
Cargo Free Friday faves: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Remix of Xtatic Truth
The Musical embodyment of our yard’s photo booth: Photomachine Dub of Xtatic Truth

Meanwhile, witness the folkdance revolution take shape with the Crystal Fighters live on the 11^th of September’s FREE FRIDAYS. If you come with a txapela, find me and I’ll buy you a drink and some tapas.

LIVE: CRYSTAL FIGHTERS + TERRY LYNN + JOANA AND THE WOLF

DJS: EDU K + ALI HISLOP + THE MONO

6-3

FREE ENTRY

Ahead of one of France’s most revered electronic music producer album launch on the 19th September, Joakim has kindly given us a brand new mix, called Milky Mix, for us to stream.

JOAKIM – MILKY MIX

If you don’t know, you really better recognise before someone you know finds out and stops liking you.  You can crib up here and here. Joakim and The Disco play live on a Saturday night . Joakim’s new album Milky Ways is released on !K7 records on the 15th September from all good records stores.