Paul Thompson‘s book is $788.50 on Bandcamp right now.
Last month, Armand Hammer dropped Rome, their densest and most compelling record since they formed in 2013. Elucid and billy woods are world-beating writers: wry, pointed, evocative. The LP spends its time in cars with broken heaters at crowded stoplights, slinking through deserted bodegas, in parking garages stepping over bullet casings. It chronicles power struggles massive and small, from crooked policing to the online skirmishes in our game- and meme-ified politics. It’s about how to order an orderless world, or whether we should bother at all.
Today we’re premiering the Willie Green-produced remix to “Carnies,” a highlight from Rome that features the enigmatic Mach-Hommy. Green is a producer who grew up in Boston and graduated from Berklee whose production has been integral to Backwoodz Studioz, the label founded by woods and which is home to both Armand Hammer and its members’ solo catalogs. (Green’s solo album from last year, Doc Savage, was one of our favorites.) Here he flips Messiah Musik’s original on its ear, turning a whimsical ride into something horrifyingly claustrophobic. The rhythm comes from percussion. It’s the sort of production showcase that’s showy enough to sell its creator without squeezing the life out of the vocals–another power struggle, navigated deftly.
