The greatest currently active rap group in the world is back with an entire album. Today, Armand Hammer, the duo of New York avant-rap wizards billy woods and ELUCID, release a new LP called Snakes & Ladders. There's been online chatter about a new Armand Hammer album in the past few days, but it arrives without any official advance notice. It sounds incredible.
Last year, Armand Hammer released Mercy, their second full-length collaboration with the Alchemist. That one had a lot of guests. This one is different. No guests appear on Snakes & Ladders, and the album has different producers on every track. Most of those producers are past collaborators, and all of them understand how to get on this group's level. The production credits include clipping., Kenny Segal, Sebb Bash, Kara-do, Jeff Markey, Child Actor, Animoss, Theravada, Mekala Session and Petter Eldh, Eomac and Saint Abdullah, Messiah Muzik, Preservation, and steel tipped dove.
Every Armand Hammer album gives you a whole lot of dense verbiage and conceptual sweep to process, so it's ridiculous to give an instant reaction to a record like Snakes & Ladders. (I've had an advance for a few days, but that's nowhere near enough to say anything comprehensive about it.) I can still tell you that it's a heady, disorienting work that digs into the furthest-out parts of their style. It feels like an apocalypse.
Earlier this year, ELUCID and Sebb Bash released the collaborative album I Guess You Had To Be There. This has been the rare year with no billy woods album, at least up until now, but he has still been very present in the indie rap world. Armand Hammer have collaborated with people like Navy Blue and Meiv, and they played a Tiny Desk Concert. They're just finishing up a tour with Sha Ray and DJ Haram right now, and they'll play a special Nov. 15 record-release show at Brooklyn's Music Hall Of Williamsburg with Sideshow, Mike Ladd, Haram and Sha Ray, Kenny Segal, and Curly Castro. Dig into Snakes & Ladders below.
TOUR DATES:
11/11 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile %
11/13 - Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre %
11/15 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall Of Williamsburg #^
# with DJ Haram & Sha Ray
^ with Sideshow, Mike Ladd, Kenny Segal, & Curly Castro
Snakes & Ladders is out now on Backwoodz Studioz.
