The Convenience have announced their new album Accelerator, which will be out October 22 on the New York-based record label Winspear.

Band members Duncan Troast and Nick Corson first met during their freshman year at Loyola University, where they had both ended up as a result of the ease of the school’s application process, and of wanting to get away from their hometowns. Troast grew up playing piano in a suburb of New Jersey, while Corson learned guitar in San Francisco, then they both sent audition tapes to the university’s music program and were accepted. After their first year in school they lost touch, and then reconnected years later playing with the local band Fishplate. Through performing together in that band, they met Ross Farbe of the pop group Video Age, who was struck by their talent and the chemistry between them and invited them to join his act.

Troast and Corson started writing material together between tours with Video Age. The project began as an experimental space, and resulted in two EPs in 2018. The new album marks a shift in direction from their earlier work, and from the music they’ve made with other bands. While not a complete reapproach, “we wanted it not to sound like anything that we made before,” Troast says. “We’re reaching for something far away.”

While creating the album, they were aiming for a sound “with a real pop ambition—even though we were kinda just figuring it out at home,” Corson says. “We talked a lot about wanting to create a playful sound-world, or an alternate pop universe. We wanted sounds that were kind of unreal and plastic, and songs that were really clear and simple.”

When asked what it is that draws him to pop, Corson says, “Pop music is just the format that I relate to the most. Because I think it can be subverted in really interesting ways, and there’s something about the endorphin rush of a great hook. It’s a way to get an emotion across.”

“A lot of the pop that we bonded over while we were making the album was using the pop structure and then sneaking in this other stuff—like classical or funk,” Troast adds. “The pop structure gives you this template, and then you’re like, ‘what can we get away with here.’”

Troast and Corson were heavily collaborative, working closely together on the arrangements and structure and lyrics. They explained that it could be nerve-wracking to share ideas and to commit to them. The songwriting process demanded vulnerability and honesty in order to make it work.

“Sometimes the hardest thing is to just write a really simple song, and it can be almost a little embarrassing, and I was sort of leaning into that feeling,” Corson says. “We were going for things that scared us a little bit—things like spoken word, things that I always loved on records by our heroes like Bowie or Prince or Madonna. There was a feeling of unease a lot of times, but in an exhilarating way.”

Most of the material for the album was written in early 2019 and recorded that summer. They both “kind of play everything on it,” Troast says, but his main focus is keyboard, while Corson handles guitar. Close friends pitched in backing vocals, flute and saxophone. They had almost completed the album in early 2020 when Covid hit, forcing them to pause for a bit. Because of the timing of it, they have never performed these songs live before. Gearing up for the album release, they’re currently in the process of booking shows for the fall.