Pharmakon – Methanal Doll
As Pharmakon, Margaret Chardiet uses sound art techniques to create sticky, dystopian realms. Her first album in five years, Maggot Mass, is out 10/4 via Sacred Bones, and finds her expanding on her penchant for doom and nastiness.
She shares the single “METHANAL DOLL.” It opens with clattering percussion and searing feedback, which support a guttural vocal performance that lands somewhere in between Genesis P-Orridge and Björk. “Unless you own some piece of land / You will never return to the earth again,” Chardiet snarls on the second verse. Pondering nature and societal collapse through a lens of feverish surrealism, the song is accompanied by a grisly video that plays into the record’s confrontational gore, directed by Chardiet, Max Rooney and Hank Allen.
On the track, Pharmakon shares: “This song represents the violent and sobering awakening from that suspended state. I looked down to see my flesh and remembered that “I” was… not the moss on a stone, or the worm in the dirt or the pollen in the wind. I am Margaret, not maggot. I wanted to reassure myself that I could die with dignity and purpose, not to be wasted. So I began to research… the highly concentrated area of organically rich soil which is left behind as a body rots is called a “Cadaver Decomposition Island”. On this island oasis, the nematodes and worms become more abundant, as do an increasingly diverse selection of plant life. The stage of this miraculous transfiguration can be measured by the “Maggot Mass.” But this only happens, I learned, during a so-called “green burial” – meaning without embalming, without concrete vault or casket, without cremation, … where all the critters that need to feed can access you… the way of chaotic creation.
Of course the clutches of capitalism reach for us, even beyond the grave. Those with means are preserved like monuments. But if you’re poor and live in the filthy concrete, steel and glass of artifice “you will burn, down to ash, in a city morgue, to a plastic bag”. The stark reality of death in America is that our dust does not return to dust. We deprive the universe of the energy we took from it. We hoard it inside our toxic graves of chemical sludge, all pickled and carved into stone. In our attempt to preserve our bodies that we may live eternally, we remove ourselves from the very chain of life and death that all else on earth adheres to. If the energy we inherit remains forever trapped in our lumps of matter, stolen away from the wider universe, are we incrementally draining and wasting all the available force of life?”
On the video, directors Max Rooney and Hank Allen:
“The ideas arose naturally when all three of us discussed the themes of the album and our influences. We wanted to make something that was grotesque but also pastoral and somber.
Margaret is super devoted to her craft and is keen on filling every moment with meaning. It’s been a truly exciting collaboration and seeing all of our visions come to life has been transformative.”
LIVE 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
12/3 – Washington, DC @ DC9 *
12/4 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s *
12/5 Boston, MA @ The Armory *
12/6 – Montréal, QC @ Cabaret Foufounes *
12/7 – Toronto, ON @ Monarch Tavern *
12/8 – Detroit, MI @ Small’s *
12/10 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle *
12//11 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups *
12/13 – Richmond, VA @ The Warehouse *
12/14 – Bethlehem, PA @ National Sokols *
* = w/Uniform + True Body
#pharmakon_noise