— Armand Hammer calls on Pink Siifu for their new single, “Trauma Mic” in preparation for their 8th studio album set to arrive next month.
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 now at the official Armand Hammer website.
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.
Pre-save/order We Buy Diabetic Test Strips and listen to “Trauma Mic” featuring Pink Siifu above, see below for a special statement on WBDTS from Armand Hammer & more album 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
8/5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Public Records Nursery Pop Up
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 Room
10/29 – 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
2/24 – Atlanta, GA @ Aisle 5
2/26 – Orlando, FL @ The Social
Armand Hammer
We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
September 29, 2023
Fat Possum Records
- Landlines [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]
- Woke Up & Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]
- The Flexible Unreliability Of Time & Memory [prod. by Child Actor]
- When It Doesn’t Start With A Kiss [prod. by JPEGMAFIA & Pudge]
- I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket ft. Cavalier [prod. by Preservation]
- Trauma Mic ft. Pink Siifu [prod. by DJ Haram]
- Niggardly (Blocked Call) [prod. by August Fanon]
- The Gods Must Be Crazy [prod. by El-P]
- You Can’t Stand Right Here ft. Junglepussy & Moneynicca (of Soul Glo) [prod. by Steel Tipped Dove & Messiah Musik]
- Total Recall [prod. by Kenny Segal]
- Empire BLVD ft Junglepussy & Curly Castro [prod. by Willie Green]
- Don’t Lose Your Job ft. Pink Siifu & Moor Mother [prod. by Black Noi$e & Jeff Markey]
- Supermooned [prod. by DJ Haram & ELUCID]
- Switchboard [prod. by Sebb Bash]
- The Key Is Under The Mat [prod. by JPEGMAFIA]