PRESSED ON DOUBLE GRAPE VINYL
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(August 2, 2023) - Armand Hammer, the groundbreaking NYC rap duo of ELUCID and billy woods, announces its eighth studio album, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, out September 29th via Fat Possum Records. The duo’s new project arrives two and a half years after Haram, their labyrinthine collaboration with The Alchemist, and is introduced with their lead single "Trauma Mic" featuring Pink Siifu. The visual, which stars DJ Haram, billy woods and ELUCID, is co-directed by acclaimed actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, O Brother Where Art Thou) and his son Henry Nelson. Produced by DJ Haram, the duo's visceral new track "snowballs," Armand Hammer describes, "except instead of snow it’s a neodymium magnet cascading down a mountain of discarded pig iron."
Alongside the news of its new album, Armand Hammer announces autumn and winter tour dates that will begin a few days after releasing its new album. The 28-date tour will begin on October 1st and run until the end of February, taking the album through North America and Europe. The duo is also announcing a free daytime show this Saturday, August 5th at Brooklyn's Public Records, where fans will be able to hear select songs from the new album for the first time. Tickets for the tour are available HERE.
Following Haram, We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is an entirely different beast, incorporating live instrumentation and featuring an array of producers including JPEGMAFIA, EL-P, Kenny Segal, DJ Haram, Black Noi$e, Preservation, August Fanon, Steel Tipped Dove, Child Actor and Sebb Bash. Holding true to the sonic identity they've successfully cultivated since their 2013 debut, familiar faces like Pink Siifu, Moor Mother, and Curly Castro make contributions, while also bringing new and like-minded peers into the fold, with features from Junglepussy, Moneynicca (of Soul Glo) and Cavalier. Virtuoso jazz musician and celebrated composer Shabaka Hutchings shows up on flute, one of several musicians who sat down with ELUCID and celebrated engineer Willie Green for a jam session in 2022 that helped pour the foundation of this album.
Of his experience working on the album, ELUCID shares, "This sort of reverse engineering of talented players who met for the first time in the studio jamming to pre-recorded beats before splintering off into new directions. Being in the room quietly watching 4 people fumble around each other's sonic worlds before finally locking into a solid groove was a clear and obvious magical moment for me."
As solo artists, ELUCID and Billy Woods had already achieved modest success prior to collaborating on their 2013 debut, Race Music. That album was followed by an EP; Furtive Movements in 2014. Both artists continued to collaborate over the following years; making appearances on each other’s work and performing together, but fans would have to wait four years for a new Armand Hammer project. ROME was released in November of 2017, and the duo doubled down with Paraffin in 2018. Like opposite sides of a coin, the two albums are connected, yet radically different in their design. Paraffin was greeted with a wave of critical acclaim that only rose in the wake of 2020’s naturalistic masterpiece Shrines or their transgressive 2021 collaboration with The Alchemist, Haram.
TRACKLIST
A1: Landlines
A2: Woke Up And Asked Siri How I'm Gonna Die
A3: The Flexible Unreliability of Time and Memory
A4: When It Doesn't Start With A Kiss
B1: I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket
B2: Trauma Mic
B3: Niggardly (Blocked Call)
B4: The God's Must Be Crazy
B5: Y'all Can't Stand Right Here
C1: Total Recall
C2: Empire Blvd
C3: Don't Lose Your Job
D1: Supermooned
D2: Switchboard
D3: The Key Is Under The Mat