Conveyor - Mammal Food / Pushups
Format: 7" Gold Vinyl (w/ simple white die-cut jacket)
Run: 250
Design: Ted Feighan
Release Date: December 10, 2013
Price: $5.99
And so, notwithstanding a significant amount of work put toward the follow-up long-player to 2012's Conveyor, here are two new songs that stand unequivocally alone. The songs appeared concomitantly during writing sessions for a full-length record. They are brusque, physical - violent and sexual id-based reactions to a surplus of structured, adaptive thought. The implication is that of a psychosexual totality that gurgles, inchoate and unrestrained, inviolate, despite and in spite of, and in stark relief against the forthcoming Conveyor full-length, due in 2014. (Read the entire preface here)
Tracklist
01. Conveyor - Mammal Food
02. Conveyor - Pushups
STREAM
DIGITAL
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PRESS
"Imagine the fret-abusing angles of early Battles plus some sunny surf-pop melodies fed through 49 distortion pedals and compressors and you're coming close to the sound of Conveyor's new track." - VICE Noisey
"Brooklyn four-piece Conveyor return this winter with a fresh 7″ on Gold Robot Records. Due out December 10th, it’s the first release since the band’s 2012 eponymous debut and also marks the first installment in the label’s new limited series called GOLD, wherein records are pressed on actual gold vinyl. The B-side track, “Pushups”, finds Conveyor swaddling their folk-pop in a dense cut of crackling noise while talking bluntly about conviction, body expectations and, yes, even penis sizes." - Consequence of Sound
"If you’ve been following Conveyor, you may know that this is a far step away from their older music, but it surely doesn’t seem like a step out of their comfort zone. This zesty tune is fully loaded with unsettling fuzz, synthetic instrumentals, and the oh-so-sweet hymnal vocals that Conveyor execute so well." - Indie Shuffle
"Lo-fi pop projects Casiotone For The Painfully Alone and Throw Me The Statue were two of the greatest of the mid-00s to utilize near-perfect pop sensibilities through layers of crunch, crispyness, and subtlety. It's not easy to maintain stick-in-your-head melodies under fierce feedback and muck, and alongside the two poorly-named prior staples, Conveyor is following up with even greater nuance. "Pushups", the first single since 2012's self-titled, is Dirty Projectors noodly but full of Jeff Mangum melodies, and never loses its joyous stride. If you're able to see through the deliberate grunge, you'll see through to a gold nugget of exuberance. It's appropriate, then, that this single (as well as it's B-side "Mammal Food") will be released on gold vinyl." - IMPOSE
"Conveyor have traded in their clean tropical sounds for a dirty, distorted take on rock/pop. The new sound is acting as a bridge from one LP to another in the form of a brand new limited 7". Conveyor takes a bold chance on "Pushups" and it pays off as their typical fascination with organized sound is given new life in the form of controlled disorder." - We Listen For You
"For a song that seems so lyrically self-conscious, it’s probably fitting that Masters’ vocals is so shrouded by fuzz and noise that it’s incredibly difficult to actually make out what he’s saying. Still, what it does make more than obvious is that the Brooklyn-based four-piece have grown immensely since the release of their very solid eponymous debut, and are making an extra effort to go a step beyond their comfort zone." - Listen Before You Buy
"It’s a bit like when you’d tune in an old black and white telly, turning the dial on the front, flicking and bending a loop antenna as you search for the right channel. Then somehow you manage to pick up two signals at once. The snowy screen giving glimpses of different programs while the pictures flicker and bleed into one another. It’s cathode ray music for the nostalgic, analogue sounds in a digital world, it’s (as you would expect from Conveyor) really good and we love it." - Alphabet Bands
"Conveyor stay true to their sort of classic rock 'n' roll edge by channeling the old school AM/FM radio fuzz and for their comedically self-conscious lyricism, still continue to offer up a bit off dazzling songcraft." - All Around Sound
"With less emphasis on strummy, decidedly sunny guitars and chipper harmonies, and more emphasis on gnarly guitar hooks and guttural wailing, the band achieve an abrasive garage-rock sound brimming with punk-ish angst and intensity." - Consequence of Sound
"The song features crunchy distortion that make the track sound suprisingly bright, along with a light guitar that’s later brought in." - JP's Blog
"They've decided to push aside their laid-back tendencies in favor of a sound that's got a lot more attitude and is a lot more rock and roll, and they pull it off well." - The 405
"The same way Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots sounded so unbelievably alien, so crytal clear and muddy at the same time, catchy and impossible to follow. Conveyor is dealing with those contradictions sounding incredible on vinyl turned up to catch the subtle crackles of those pedals melting." - 7 inches
also:
Modern Vinyl
Record Crack
Jungle Indie Rock
The Absolute
Earbuddy
Faronheit
In Your Speakers
Sly Vinyl
Listen Before You Buy
PREFACE
And so, notwithstanding a significant amount of work put toward another full-length long-player, here is an extra release that stands unequivocally alone. Mammal Food/Pushups is a new 7” vinyl single being released on Gold Robot Records. It is composed of two songs, “Mammal Food” and “Pushups,” by Conveyor [1]. These two songs exist as a series, presented in no uncertain order, that effects a type of one-way communication, the message of which forms a totality, a discourse, an observation and a reaction, both a signifier and what is signified. But how is it that as a set, these individual songs which define their own limits, irrupt at one moment and announce their conclusion at the next, and lie tangential yet ultimately separate from each other, how is it that in their totality, in their united, continuous motion, they form a third, helical, strobogrammatic object? It is not that each one explicates an idea set forth by its anterior brother, finally concluding in the resolution of a unique idea or statement of being. It is not that each one in its own right slouches in the negative space between being and non-being, a declension from reason and wellness. It is not even that each one represents the reality of its originators, though the heavy-handedness of a few lines will, I hope, be forgiven. No- instead it is the breaks and silences, the caesurae, the negativities that form relations between the ideas and enunciations, concepts, and the songs as objects that give this series its voice.2
It is in the lyrics- that one song is a representation of minimal self-esteem and the other of maximal self-esteem serves to identify “self-esteem” (or, at least, reflexive regard for one's self) as an object and delineate a spectrum on which it can be said to exist, all of which implicates a further, unspoken, theoretically “real” value that lies somewhere in the middle.
It is in the music- that each song occupies the space between authenticity and charade as a factor of its physical construction skews one's perception of assumptions v. expectations, perceived reality v. “actual” reality, and affinity v. disdain.
Alright, but then at this point I've already said too much; what exists for me exists entirely as a construction of myself, and in presenting that subjectivity along with those of my brothers from other mothers, we have situated this record at a point in time. That our temporal and spatial anomalies can be defined in a personally significant sense or a mathematically significant sense merely represents yet other modes of discourse about the same thing, and that is a thing which is a singularity. It is an event which multiplies rapidly upon repeated inspection but which remains composed of the same, finite strata; it exists only as a function of how it can be reacted to, and each subsequent reaction says more about it than it can ever say for itself. The only thing left for me to say, which is as much a reaction as anything else and should not be confused for a statement of intention or a means by which I should eternally bind myself to it, associate to it, or regulate its public perception, is that it comprises two fucking good songs.
- T.J. Masters
September 2013
[1] Here is some relevant background information and a list of associated personnel for those who require it: the songs were written in 2013 while residing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. They were recorded both in Greenpoint and Astoria, Queens, NY using a Harmony-brand acoustic guitar, undated. They were mixed by the members of Conveyor (Gary Alan Busch, Jr., Michael Ryan Pedron, Timothy John Masters, Evan Michael Garfield) and mastered by Nick Carden in Oakland, CA. Jessi Frick is responsible for motivation, and Hunter Mack is responsible for movement. They are dedicated in form and in function to Robbie Carroll.
[2] Cf. Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Great Britain: Tavistock Publications, Ltd.