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
Théâtre Garonne, 2008 cover

Théâtre Garonne, 2008

David S. Ware New Quartet
The Owner of the River Bank cover

The Owner of the River Bank

Cecil Taylor, Italian Instabile Orchestra
Circuit City cover

Circuit City

Moor Mother
Kulma cover

Kulma

Pan Sonic
The Black Ark cover

The Black Ark

Noah Howard
12 Comp (ZIM) 2017 cover

12 Comp (ZIM) 2017

Anthony Braxton
Rope-A-Dope cover

Rope-A-Dope

Lester Bowie
Balance cover

Balance

Surgeon