- Pharmakon is the performance name of New York power electronics/noise/death experimentalist Margaret Chardiet. Her debut full length, last year, Abandon, was a confronting journey that refused to let up in its intensity, musically and lyrically. Bestial Burden is her follow-up, detailing a fairytale like experience, in which Chardiet develops a crippling cyst, debilitating to the point of agony and from which this new album is derived.
On this record, things sound -if it is at all possible- more fractured, but yet, at times, also more organic. The first taste of this record, Body Betrayed Itself, is the closest point of connection between Abandon and Burden, capitalising on blood-curdling screams, distorted drums and wall-of-sound synths that are familiar from tracks such as Milkweed/It Hangs Heavy and Crawling On Bruised Knees, the two of which made Abandon such an inescapable listen.
The record opens with Vacuum, a minute and a half of frenzied deep breathing, looped, with a saw tooth coming and going underneath. Immediately it is clear that this is a Pharmakon record. Intent Or Instinct follows, the longest track on the album, clocking in at eight-and-a-half minutes. A sampled guitar feedback line plays second fiddle to Chardiet's skin-peeling vocal delivery and the beat blends seamlessly into Body Betrays Itself as if the two are the same track. It's almost a cliche when describing Pharmakon and her music, but really this is simply terrifying and painful. However, once you adjust to the trauma, these basic reactions are overwhelmed by a surging sense of defeat, nothingness and the occasional, panicky urge to escape. Pharmakon conveys these emotions to the listener so effectively that it imparts a surprising legitimacy to her music.
Primitive Struggle sounds exactly as the name suggests with a person (presumably Chardiet) coughing and retching, simply struggling for two-and-a-half minutes; it could be a successor to Vacuum. Autoimmune is the most industrial and musically fleshed out track on here, comprising a repetitive beat and, if you pay attention to the lyrical content, has an almost folky quality in its earthy tale of illness and the human condition. The title track officially closes the record and is also the highlight. Conflicting emotions spin round, united in the song's catch-call "I don't belong here" which, paradoxically, is almost impossible to identify with, even as it demands the listener's pity and empathy. It's so uneasy, as laughter shatters into screams, ground down into simply broken noise, becoming the masterwork of the record.
On certain editions, an oddity appears in the form of a cover of Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang and upon first listen it is deeply jarring. What it does show is that Chardiet actually has a pretty nice singing voice and while the whole record has spent such profound effort on pushing you away, this is a unique, welcoming moment.
It's bleedingly obvious that this isn't for everyone, but this is one of the better records of the year, surpassing Abandon in its boundary pushing. The music of Bestial Burden requires not only thought but stamina, much more than the average listener will bring. Perhaps the only people who can connect with this are those approaching the level of personal damage that Chardiet herself manifests. In that case, the price of appreciating Bestial Burden is high, but ultimately worth paying, because this is simply amazing.

- Bradley Armstrong.