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
Simultan cover

Simultan

Roland Kayn
Godbluff cover

Godbluff

Van der Graaf Generator
Live at the East cover

Live at the East

Pharoah Sanders
Go See The World cover

Go See The World

David S. Ware
Halo cover

Halo

Bill Laswell, Andy Hawkins, Azonic
Heritage Of The Invisible II cover

Heritage Of The Invisible II

Aquiles Navarro, Tcheser Holmes
Spirits Aloft cover

Spirits Aloft

Rashied Ali, Henry Grimes
Nonaah cover

Nonaah

Roscoe Mitchell