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
Karma cover

Karma

Pharoah Sanders
The Black Ark cover

The Black Ark

Noah Howard
Morton Feldman: Trio cover

Morton Feldman: Trio

Marc Sabat, Rohan de Saram, Aki Takahashi
United cover

United

Woody Shaw
No New York cover

No New York

Various Artists
In Paris, Aries 1973 cover

In Paris, Aries 1973

Black Artists Group
On the Corner cover

On the Corner

Miles Davis
Codebreaker cover

Codebreaker

Matthew Shipp
Black Woman cover

Black Woman

Sonny Sharrock
Nightcrawler cover

Nightcrawler

Kevin Richard Martin
Bitches Brew cover

Bitches Brew

Miles Davis