Pharmakon: "Body Betrays Itself"

“Body Betrays Itself” fully exhibits the overriding concept of Margaret Chardiet’s new album as Pharmakon, Bestial Burden. The Brooklyn-based noise artist explained the theming process recently, talking about her 2013 surgery—how it made her think about the body’s disintegration over time, how there’s no sense of control when stricken by disease. This track outlines that process in miniature. Chardiet lets the music slowly break apart around her, ultimately building toward a moment of dissonance from which it never fully recovers. 

Chardiet’s music is never too concerned with recovery anyway. Listening to her work is like watching skin gradually wither over time, as it succumbs to the travails of aging. There’s very little forward momentum in “Body Betrays Itself”. Instead, it ominously loops in place, creating a picture of its creator trapped in a private ordeal, barely able to move. Chardiet’s wrestling with her own mortality here, and like the best music she’s released to date under this name, it’s simultaneously uncomfortable and captivating to behold.

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