featured image: photo credit: Alexander Richter
WE BUY DIABETIC TEST STRIPS OUT SEPTEMBER 29TH VIA FAT POSSUM RECORDS
WORLD TOUR STARTS OCTOBER 1ST
From its upcoming sixth studio album, Armand Hammer shares its second offering, “Woke Up And Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die,” produced by JPEGMAFIA. The new song follows their lead single “Trauma Mic,” which features Pink Siifu and is produced by DJ Haram. The duo’s highly-anticipated new album We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, is out September 29th via Fat Possum Records, which they teased with a surprise free live show at Brooklyn’s Public Records earlier this month. The single is accompanied by a new video directed by Joseph.
On the process of the collaboration with JPEGMAFIA and how the new single fits into the album as a whole, billy woods writes: “I think that every project I worked on, you are kinda waiting to make your first track that is more than the sum of its parts. Because some tracks have a dope verse and a really good beat and a great hook, and the song is really dope and that’s cool. That’s a win, for sure, but there are other songs out there. The ones where all the parts swirl in a unique orbit, building upon each other and all of a sudden the whole thing is floating. Alchemy. Base metals turn to gold, etc. That’s really the moment I’m always waiting for when I start on a new creative journey. That unmistakable signpost. On We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, there were more than a few such moments, but this was the very first one. One take and it was like, yeah that’s it.”
Just two days after the album’s release Armand Hammer will start their autumn and winter tour dates. The 28-date tour will begin on October 1st and run until the end of February, taking the album through North America and Europe. Tickets for the tour are available HERE.
The groundbreaking NYC rap duo of ELUCID and billy woods’ new project arrives two and a half years after Haram, their labyrinthine collaboration with The Alchemist. 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.
Listen to to “Woke Up And Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” above, see below for a special statement on WBDTS from Armand Hammer, plus more album and tour info.
From the desk of Armand Hammer:
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is a Midsummer’s night in Brooklyn, the stage busy with Gods old, new, and unborn, the orchestra pit thick with weed smoke. Memories, true and false, tangle like wires. Afrofuturists rewind analog answering machines. Brownstones line empty streets on quiet nights where even outside the Men’s Shelter, they pass cigarettes in silence. Street sweepers rattle the morning, broken hovercrafts sent from the past to do nothing at all. People move out of the building in the morning and move back in at dusk, excited to get settled in their old place. Dropped calls fall into the ether, the cracked mirror in your pocket is past warranty but not to worry, they have already mailed you a replacement.
Upcoming Live Dates
North America
10/1 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
10/6 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre
10/8 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
10/9 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
10/11 – Oakland, CA @ The New Parish
10/12 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex
10/13 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room10/29 – Austin, TX @ Levitation Festival
EU / UK
11/2 – Manchester, UK @ Canvas
11/4 – London, UK @ Earth Hall
11/5 – Berlin, Germany @ Pitchfork Festival
11/7 – St. Gallen, Switzerland @ Palace
11/9 – Paris, France @ Point Ephemere
11/10 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique Rotonde
11/11 – Utrecht, Netherlands @ Le Guess Who? Holland Festival
11/14 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Tolhuistuin
North America
11/16 – New York City, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
11/17 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
11/18 – Washington D.C. @ Union Stage
11/30 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom
12/1 – Easthampton, NY @ Daily Operation
1/20 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz PDB
1/22 – Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
1/24 – Detroit, MI @ The Magic Bag
1/25 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
1/27 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine line
2/22 – Orlando, FL @ The Social
2/24 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5
Armand Hammer
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
September 29, 2023
Fat Possum Records
1. Landlines [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]
2. Woke Up & Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]
3. The Flexible Unreliability Of Time & Memory [prod. by Child Actor]
4. When It Doesn’t Start With A Kiss [prod. by JPEGMAFIA & Pudge]
5. I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket ft. Cavalier [prod. by Preservation]
6. Trauma Mic ft. Pink Siifu [prod. by DJ Haram]
7. Niggardly (Blocked Call) [prod. by August Fanon]8. The Gods Must Be Crazy [prod. by El-P]
9. You Can’t Stand Right Here ft. Junglepussy & Moneynicca (of Soul Glo) [prod. by Steel Tipped Dove & Messiah Musik]
10. Total Recall [prod. by Kenny Segal]
11. Empire BLVD ft Junglepussy & Curly Castro [prod. by Willie Green]
12. Don’t Lose Your Job ft. Pink Siifu & Moor Mother [prod. by Black Noi$e & Jeff Markey]
13. Supermooned [prod. by DJ Haram & ELUCID]
14. Switchboard [prod. by Sebb Bash]
15. The Key Is Under The Mat [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]
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