Contact cover

Contact

Released

Pharmakon’s 2014 album Bestial Burden was inspired by a sudden, life-threatening medical emergency and the resulting feeling of vulnerability and physical helplessness. This album is its flipside, an attempt to reconnect with the world, from its cover art depicting Margaret Chardiet’s face framed and caressed by many greasy-looking hands to its junkyard postpunk clang and clatter (“No Natural Order”) and pulsing electronic rhythms (“Transmission”), over which she howls, gasps, and cries out. Electronic noise music can be alienating, a deliberate attempt to shove the listener away, but for all the harshness of her tracks, Chardiet offers an embrace; she wants to pull you in.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Public Castration Is a Good Idea cover

Public Castration Is a Good Idea

Swans
Defeat cover

Defeat

Fire!
Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile cover

Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile

Matana Roberts
Halber Mensch cover

Halber Mensch

Einstürzende Neubauten
Theirs cover

Theirs

Thumbscrew
New York, Fall 1974 cover

New York, Fall 1974

Anthony Braxton
Aliseen cover

Aliseen

Kaski, Jorma Tapio
EthioBraz cover

EthioBraz

Large Unit
Spirit Groove cover

Spirit Groove

David Murray, Kahil El'Zabar
East Broadway Run Down cover

East Broadway Run Down

Sonny Rollins
Three Crowns cover

Three Crowns

Maciej Obara
Last Desert cover

Last Desert

Liberty Ellman