Conveyor - Prime

Format: Double 12" on Heavyweight Black Vinyl
Run: 500
Design: Hunter Mack
Release Date: July 15, 2014
Price: $24.99


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Prime is a long-playing record written and recorded by the band Conveyor and released by Gold Robot Records in 2014. The urge to elaborate on this opening statement and use this space to explain oneself is overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. The objective reality is that the only thing to explain is one's self, and the only audience for such an explanation is oneself. So what can be said, then, about a record, in many ways the distillation of a self (or a group of selves) that is intended to be consumed by an audience of others? Or, I mean, what can be said about this record? If we can say that to define an object is to define its relationship to the objects around it, placing it in a network of singularities that together approach a reality, carving it out of a sort of negative space, then here is an approximate definition of this record via the placement of the objects (viz., beings, or: people) that surround it:

The music on this record is music that was composed and performed alongside two midnight screenings of George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971) on 13 and 14 December 2013 at Nitehawk Cinema (N.C.) in Brooklyn, NY. These events were facilitated by Mason Rader (later John Woods), projectionist Andy Baratta, among other N.C. staff, and Ben Wygonik.

This record, as written, performed, and produced by Timothy Masters, Michael Pedron, Evan Garfield, G. Alan Busch, and Doug Fischer, was captured live on 3 January 2014 at the Silent Barn in Brooklyn, NY by Julian Fader and Carlos Hernandez, collectively Gravesend Recordings. One additional session of trombone overdubs took place at Doug Fischer's apartment and was recorded by D. Fischer. One additional session of vocal overdubs was recorded by G.A.B. and T. Masters. There is one piece of this music that belongs to Charles “Buddy Holly” Holley and is presented here in a facsimile version with deference to its original author. The recordings were mastered by Nick Carden. The artwork on the LP is the score of the music therein as interpreted by Hunter Mack.

Other elements of the two December performances such as lighting effects, costumes, and set design are not represented here, and so this record should not be taken as a permutation of either of those two events but as a discrete object in and of itself. It is discontinuous from these and other objects, yet if it were employed concomitantly with them it would accurately effect the December events. Prime comes at an odd time in the lives of those who have participated in its construction and occupies a borderline frustrating amount of space, and yet as a concept it remains inviolable and pure, denoting a way forward which we have no choice but to pursue.

Tracklist

01. Conveyor - Theme I
02. Conveyor - Theme II
03. Conveyor - Theme III
04. Conveyor - Theme IV
05. Conveyor - Theme V
06. Conveyor - Theme VI
07. Conveyor - Theme VII
08. Conveyor - Theme VIII
09. Conveyor - Theme IX
10. Conveyor - Theme X
11. Conveyor - Theme XI
12. Conveyor - Theme XII
13. Conveyor - Theme XIII
14. Conveyor - Words of Love (Buddy Holly cover) [vinyl only]

STREAM

DIGITAL

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PRESS

"Prime can be enjoyed separate from its point of reference – each theme explores one or more motifs – but the thirteen works are excellent subversions of Lucas’s film. Where the director intended to erase any trace of psychological imagery, Conveyor play Freud in coaxing out THX 1138’s (that’s the name of Robert Duvall’s character.) frantic mind as it faces freedom from drug-induced conformity." - Tiny Mix Tapes

"It’s an interesting foray deeper into the world of electronics once more that the band manages to imbue with their unpredictable spirit." - I Guess I'm Floating

"(A) haunting mesotropic loop caught between an esoteric meditative dance and the joyous bells of a Hare Krishna procession." - Gold Flake Paint

"(B)ack and forth between being a grand, dispassionate epic and a more nuanced study of individuality and personhood." - No Fear of Pop

"(A) frenzied krautrock surge that just keeps getting more and more extraordinarily vivid. As awesome as it would have been to witness this spectacle in person, the music is thrilling in its own right."
- Stereogum

"It's a thrilling listen that builds into a hectic garage-rock assault..."
- The 405

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