Pharmakon (aka Margaret Chardiet) has announced her first new album in five years, Maggot Mass, due October 4 via Sacred Bones (pre-order). Margaret says:
Lyrically, in the past I didn’t allow myself to rhyme, use traditional structures of poetry, and avoided pronouns at all costs. So this time I incorporated all of those tropes, and wrote from a more familiar and direct voice to the listener. I also wanted to explore new ways of using my voice besides speaking or screaming, and experimented with new vocalizations balancing strain and hoarseness with melody and cadence.
Compositionally, I never allowed myself to use any traditional song structures, and this time allowed myself to dabble into “music” instead of strictly “noise”. This resulted in “solos” and “bridges” and “verses and choruses” sprinkled throughout the record.
The first taste is the nearly-nine-minute “Wither and Warp,” and don’t let Margaret’s above quote mislead you into thinking this is any less unsettling than the Pharmakon of old. It’s an eerie, creepy, abrasive song, and here’s what Margaret says about this one in particular:
The lyrics for this song began with a euphoric and vividly hallucinatory dream. In it, “I” did not exist, simply was. Without memory, identity, or ego. Suspended outside of time – only present moment. Oblivion. Without true thought, merely sensations that felt as comforting as they were unfamiliar: I sensed the prickled growing pains of an extending root, and the tingle of minerals soaking through it. I heard a chattering flow of information pass through me, all chemical communication. A vague awareness collected slowly, of being the moss that cushioned a stone. Enraptured in the beauty of existence as a plant, a producer who takes only sun, air, and water to reciprocate multitudes in return.
In this dream, I my “self” was dead. I had passed away into the earth, becoming part of it, or many parts of it – through the divine transfiguration of decay. And I was more content in this mode of being than I ever was with life as a human. This dream-logic hinged upon the hope that when we die, the body merely breaks down back into the energy that was trapped inside its’ matter. And all the carrion-eaters who might devour “you” will surely take “you” into “them”, rendering your death back into the folds of life. This song represents the ecstasy of that dream… joy in (a lack of) existence, the self scattered throughout many forms of being.
How sweet the vision of a death without waste. But as always, we must awaken from such sweet dreams…
Listen and check out the artwork, tracklist, and list of upcoming Europe dates below.
Tracklist
1. WITHER AND WARP
2. METHANAL DOLL
3. BUYER’S REMORSE
4. SPLENDID ISOLATION
5. OILED ANIMALS
Pharmakon — 2024 Tour Dates
9/30 – Innsbruck, AT @ PMK
10/1 – Zurich, CH @ Dynamo
10/2 – Frankfurt, DE @ WW2 Bunker
10/3 – Hamburg, DE @ Hafenklang
10/5 – Uppsala, SE @ Otherworldly Festival
10/6 – Oslo, SE @ Vaterland
10/7 – Jonkoping, SE @ The Hush Hush Club
10/8 – Gothenburg, SE @ Oceanen
10/9 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
10/11 – Nijmegen, NL @ Soulcrusher
10/12 – Brussels, BE @ Magasin 4
10/13 – London, UK @ Underworld
10/15 – Dunkirk, FR @ 4Ecluses
10/17 – Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia
10/18 – Poznań, PL @ Pawilion
10/19 – Lodz, PL @ DOM
10/20 – Prague, CZ @ Bike Jesus
10/21 – Brno, CZ @ Kabinet Muz
10/22 – Budapest, HU @ Instant
10/23 – Zagreb, HR @ Mochvara
10/25 – Ljubljana, SL @ Gromka
10/26 – Bologna, IT @ Improved Sequence II Festival