SAVE YOURSELF - 2XLP RE-ISSUE + INSTRUMENTALS by ELUCID

This is the ELUCID Save Yourself 2xLP 12" grey marble-colored vinyl in a gatefold jacket with photography by Alexander Richter. Side A/B is the main version and C/D is the instrumentals.

Save Yourself is the debut solo album from rapper/producer ELUCID, New York’s best-kept secret. He’s worked with some of indie hip-hop’s most celebrated artists, like Open Mike Eagle, Tanya Morgan, billy woods, Beans from Antipop, milo, J*Davey, Busdriver, Small Professor and Rob Sonic. ELUCID has released critically-acclaimed collaborative projects as Armand Hammer with billy woods, and as Cult Favorite, with A.M Breakups, but Save Yourself represents a new chamber from a breakthrough artist. The album is largely self produced with additional production by Willie Green, A.M. Breakups, Messiah Musik and more.

released April 15, 2016

Mixed and Mastered by Paul "Willie Green" Womack for Paul Womack Media.
Assistant Engineer: Cedric Wilson

Photos by Alexander Richter.

Born in Queens and raised in Long Island, longtime Brooklyn resident ELUCID is New York’s best-kept secret. He’s worked with some of indie hip-hop’s most celebrated artists: Open Mike Eagle, Tanya Morgan, J*Davey, Beans from Antipop, milo, billy woods, Busdriver, Small Professor and Rob Sonic, amongst others. He’s put out a few mixtapes and a couple collaborative projects—as part of Cult Favorite with A.M. Breakups, and Armand Hammer with billy woods—but never a solo album. Until now. 

Save Yourself was created between summer 2014 and fall 2015, in a proudly crumbling East New York brownstone. Equal parts exorcism and reckoning, Save Yourself crystallized during a tulmultous time in the artist’s life. 

“I had just ended a 7-and-a-half-year-long relationship, quit a job i hated, and moved to a new hood in three months time,” ELUCID explains. “I got a shit job that let me stay up all night. I lived simply. I stayed woke. Got woker. I lost mad weight. I went to weird shows by myself. I got a library card and sometimes I made simple loops with an old school hardware sampler that a friend was tossing in the trash. I chopped drums. I sampled free jazz, post punk and gospel. I made dubbed-out noise collages. I played my own synth lines. I met someone who played synth way better than me.” 

While a couple outside producers like Willie Green, Messiah Musik and A.M. Breakups, make memorable contributions, Save Yourself is primarily self-produced. And although this is ELUCID’s first time taking the production reins on an LP, he had quietly been working to this point for years. He engineered and co-produced much of Armand Hammer’s Furtive Movements EP (2014) and was the executive producer behind billy woods’ critically acclaimed LP Today, I Wrote Nothing (2015). 

“Save yourself is my most immediate and personal record to date. It's difficult to articulate but handling the bulk of production may have had something to do with that. I didn't really know what I was making. When the spirit moved, the raps poured out. I was talking about myself. My community. About where I came from and future possibilities,” ELUCID says. “At its core, Save Yourself is about rebirth—of both self and community. An examination. An assessment. A shedding. I was working through personal issues that spilled over into the music. Events regarding police brutality and shootings of unarmed black folk dominated news headlines in a way that I've never seen in my lifetime. Liberation was on my mind. I reaffirmed myself in the idea that I couldn't truly be free until we were all free.”